The Adventures of Sherlock Brain
by The Illustrious Crackpot
Summary: In order to take over the world, Brain decides to become the greatest detective in history and earn universal adoration.  But it'll be hard to pull this off when he has to contend with Pinky, a demented FFN author and other troubles too numerous to list!
1. Chapter 1

_The place: Acme Labs. The time: 8:30 PM. Or 8:37 if you're a stickler. I'm sitting in a stiff metallish-plasticky chair, staring enraptured at a TV set as I type this on the Macintosh G3 sitting on my lap. Perched on the chair's headrest next to me is a lanky though still small white mouse with big blue eyes and buck teeth, mechanically munching on scraps of dryer lint as he watches the screen. Playing on the TV is an old black-and-white movie, which I cannot describe right now because a squat, large-headed white mouse has just walked up behind us and is speaking._

"_What is the meaning behind your presence?" he demands of me in a voice that sounds suspiciously like Orson Welles's. I twist around in the chair and am about to make a witty retort when I'm beaten to it by Pinky._

"_Well, I _LIVE_ here, Brain! _Narf!_" the taller mouse replies in a Cockney accent, then his ears stiffen as he reconsiders. "...I think."_

"_Not YOU, Pinky!" Brain snaps, pointing accusatorily at me. "_THAT!_"_

_I pretend to be offended. "Why do you have to be so SUSPICIOUS, Brain? I'm just watching an old mystery movie with Pinky! One of the _Thin Man_ flicks, too."_

"_THEN WHY'RE YOU TYPING THIS UP?"_

_I barely even glance back up from the keyboard. "Purely sentimental reasons. I want to remember ALWAYS these pleasurable conversations with you...me sneaking into the lab at night...you accusing me of writing fanfictions about you...me writing one anyways and sending you into horribly painful situations..." I sigh. "These are good times, Brain."_

_Brain clambers up onto a nearby table so he can look at me without feeling too short, and is about to pass a scathing comment when Pinky pipes up. "Ooh, Brain, you're just in time for the EXCITIN' parts!_ Poit!_" he squeals, his tail thumping against the headrest like a dog wagging its own tail. "Y'see, this guy was walkin' over to 'is wife, an' then 'e was SHOT! An' his wife was holdin' a gun, only she didn't shoot 'im! The shot came from somewhere else! An' her OLD boyfriend came over an' got rid of the gun so no one would know! 'Cept everyone still thinks the wife did it! An' nobody c'n figure out who REALLY murdered 'im!"_

_Even though he makes a show of not liking it, Brain is intrigued—you can tell by the way his ears straighten. He sits down (though somewhat sulkily) and watches along with us, paying close attention to the plot to catch up on whatever he missed. A few minutes later, though, Brain points to one of the characters on the screen. "Who's that man over there?"_

_I pause and try to think. (I always have trouble telling actors apart in really old movies.) "That's the wife's former lover."_

_Brain makes an audible scoffing sound, gesturing with a hand at the screen. "What sort of simpleton wrote this? It's obvious that THAT man is the murderer!"_

_Both Pinky and I pause, and turn slooooooowly towards the Brain. "Huh?"_

_The Brain sits back, crossing his arms as he makes clear his annoyance at our stupidity. "If I comprehend all of this correctly, THAT MAN saw the wife kneeling over the dead man with the gun, and he dispensed with the weapon to ascertain that it wouldn't be discovered." Pinky and I exchange glances, then nod dumbly, even though neither of us can understand a heck of a lot of what he's saying. "The wife didn't shoot him, and that man was the only other person present besides the deceased. As well, I surmise that this woman spurned him in order to marry the man who is now dead. If the woman's gun is never discovered and inspected, they can never prove that she DIDN'T shoot her husband. If THAT MAN killed the other man and framed the woman, she would be given capital punishment—DEATH—and the man would have revenge on both the woman who rejected him and the man who had taken her away. Q.E.D."_

_Even I, knowing through encyclopedic knowledge of the mice the extent of Brain's, well, brainpower, am astounded. "That's RIGHT!" I cry, making Pinky sit bolt upright. "I've seen this movie before! That's EXACTLY what happened!"_

_Rummaging in my laptop carrying case lying nearby, I pull out a small paperback book titled _The Labors of Hercules_ by Agatha Christie, a collection of short Hercule Poirot adventures. Leafing through the pages, I select one and begin reading it out loud. After only a few more minutes, though, Brain stops me._

"_This is all ridiculously simple!" he protests. "Obviously the dogs that escape are IMPERSONATORS, probably one singular dog, trained by the nurses to run away if they cut his lead while bending over a baby carriage. The REAL dogs are kept in a safe location so they can be easily returned after the ransom has been received."_

_I'm still amazed, and so is Pinky. "E-_gad_, Brain!" Pinky cries, clasping his hands together. "How do you DO it?"_

_Brain, although immeasurably pleased with himself, tries to appear humble by explaining it out. "It's only a simple matter of mathematical equations. One variable leads to a logical conclusion; the existence of certain variables proves the existence of their matching conclusions, and likewise the existing conclusions lead back to their originating variables. It's quite lucid."_

_Whether he understands any of that ramble or not, Pinky is still flabbergasted. "Gee, that's BRILLIANT!" he cries, and leaps into the air, having forgotten that he's sitting precariously on the edge of a chair's headrest. I manage to scoop him out of freefall without damaging him TOO much, though. "Brain, YOU should be a DETECTIVE! You'd be even better'n SHERLOCK HOLMES!"_

_While Brain is "modestly" protesting this, my eyes light up. "You know, that's a good idea for a—" I begin, then stop myself midsentence. Putting Pinky down on the table by Brain, I ask, "Uhh, where's the bathroom?"_

"_Over there," Pinky answers, pointing to a pile of straw in a cage sitting only a few feet away from him. Brain rolls his eyes, conks Pinky over the head and points stiffly to a corner of the lab, probably hoping that I'll leave once I use it. I scamper away, carrying my G3 with me, then once I'm inside I close the door securely behind me. Putting down the toilet seat, I sit on top of it and reopen my laptop. Still on the text program, I press the buttons "Command" and "N". A blank new window appears on the screen and, cackling quietly, I begin to type._

——————————————————————————————————————

**The Adventures of Sherlock Brain**

(The Illustrious Crackpot)

This fanfic dedicated to Welshrose, without whose support and constant reminders this story might never have been finished...and whose patience miraculously managed to last for the six months since I promised her this story.

"_Sentence structure is innate, but whining is acquired." —Woody Allen_

**Chapter 1**

THE STORY BEGINS! (aka "I Just Signed My Death Notice With The Brain")

Darkest night. An abandoned laboratory. A small metal cage. And inside, a lanky white mouse with protrudant upper teeth gnawing on a slice of cardboard.

"Gwhee, Brwainh," he spat out around his makeshift snack, swallowing a soggy chunk, "whaddaya want'ta do tonight?"

Another mouse, squatter and with a larger head and a jagged pink tail, sitting on an upturned thimble and staring at a sheet of paper inside a large red binder sitting open on the floor. "The same thing we do EVERY night, Pinky," he replied smoothly, a light glinting in his bloodshot pink eyes as his voice raised in volume. "TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

"_They're Pinky and the Brain_

_Yes Pinky and the Brain_

_One is a—"_

The Brain looked up in irritation. "How did that TV get turned on?!" he demanded, getting to his feet and stalking over to the side of the cage. Reaching a large remote control, the stout mouse stepped on a button, and the television turned off with a _click_. He sighed in irritation. "It is exceedingly bewildering that people actually _watch_ those sorts of hideous children's shows. After all, there's—"

The short mouse stopped midsentence, staring at the television. "Pause for a nanosecond..." he realized slowly, his eyes widening, "...that television WAS on before, _wasn't_ it? And weren't we _outside_ the cage merely a moment ago?"

Pinky ripped off another hunk of cardboard with his teeth, chewing it slowly. "Heeey, THIS isn't dryer lint!" he cried indignantly, then suddenly brightened. "It's MUCH better!_ Narf!_"

Brain arched an eyebrow, then shuddered. "This is highly irregular," he remarked, rubbing his chin. "It's almost as if we're in another fanfi—no. No, that's _impossible_. We couldn't have been slipped into another idiotic piece of amateur 'literature' without my knowing it." As he pondered on this, however, his eyes narrowed into pinpricks of pure loathing. "But that '_Illustrious Crackpot_'..."

"UM!" Pinky ejaculated nervously, derailing Brain's train of thought. "Um, well, uh, (_Zort_), um...want some, Brain?" He held out the now-damp slice of cardboard towards the Brain with a weak grin.

Glancing between the proffered snack and the taller mouse before him, Brain let out a sigh of utter contempt. "I have always been appalled at your mental capacity, Pinky, but never have I realized just how _feeble_ your cerebrum _is_." With that remark, he turned and began to pace in the opposite direction.

Pinky paused, repeating the sentence in his head, then "_Poit!_"ed and clasped his hands together. "Oh, THANK you, Brain! You NEVER compliment me!"

The Brain sighed again, not even deigning to reply. However, Pinky had managed to get the shorter mouse's mind off of the cosmic, fanfiction-based reality, which was good for the author who was still hiding in the bathroom typing this up. When it became clear that Brain was too deep in thought to resume speaking, though, Pinky laid the cardboard chunk on the cage floor and plodded along behind his companion. "Ummmmmm..._what're_ we doing tonight again, Brain?"

Eased back into the normal routine, Brain raised a fist and shouted much more loudly than was necessary, "TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!" Then he stopped, rubbed his chin again and turned to Pinky, slightly embarrassed. "Uh...unfortunately, I, eh...haven't the slightest notion _how_."

Poking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as if to clear some space for any wayward brain cells, Pinky scratched his head and thought. Then he gasped, spreading his arms wide and flapping them up and down a bit. "I know! I know!" he cried enthusiastically. "We could make a _giant_ jelly roll, then TOSS it off the Leanin' Tower of Pisa, and everyone in the world will be all CONFUSED! Oooh, ooooh!! OR we could buy a lot of coathangers an' stick 'em in our ears, makin' 'WOO WOO' sounds so people'll think that we're ALIENS!! Or, even better, we coOOOF!"

Reaching up, Brain had grasped the taller mouse's nose and yanked Pinky down to his eye level, glaring at him. "Pinky, stop talking," he commanded, then let go. Pinky's nose snapped back up to the rest of his face, and though he rubbed it gingerly he couldn't help but giggle. "I must think. Somehow, we _need_ a plan—if we spend _one_ night without attempting to take over the world, that will probably end up being the one night we _would_ have been able to." Even before Pinky's ears perked up and his mouth opened again, the Brain cut him off. "And _no_, Pinky, NOT one of _your_ plans."

"Oh," was all Pinky could really think of to say, his large ears flopping over just a little as Brain turned away again, sitting back on top of the thimble and staring intently at the blank sheet of paper before him. It didn't take too long for Pinky to brighten, though, and he suddenly began applauding. "E-_gad_, I've got it!"

With this, Pinky made a running start and then skidded to a halt in front of the TV remote. The motion was meant to be impressive and just a little "cool", but Pinky's lead foot slipped at the end and, flailing his arms, the little mouse landed flat on his back with a _whumf_. Raising himself up on his elbows, he laughed nasally before rising to his feet, brushing off his ruffled white fur and hopping onto the "power" button of the remote. The TV turned on with an audible _click_, abruptly cutting in on the middle of a _horrible_ cartoon about two domination-minded lab mice. The noise made Brain straighten with a start, then he glared irritably at the taller mouse.

"Pinky, _what_ are you _doing?_"

Pinky couldn't answer immediately, as he was jumping rhythmically up and down on the "channel" button and was too busy panting to formulate any words. "Just—_pant_—trying—_pant_—to—_wheeze_—find if—_snerk_—Donald Trump's on here somewhere, Brain," he gasped, grinning at his companion as he continued to _literally_ channel-hop. "He should—_pant_—have some ideas for world—_huff_—domination for you to use!"

A small silence, then Brain commented flatly, "Then why don't we just listen to the president's radio address?"

Accidentally mis-jumping, Pinky landed on his bottom on the cage floor and started laughing hysterically, clutching at his sides and periodically emitting such colorful sounds as "_Fjord_", "_Troz_" and even a "_Glarb_". "Oooh, ooh, that's FUNNY, Brain!" he eventually wheezed past more spasmodic chuckles, wiping tears out of the corners of his eyes. "An' most people _fergit_ about the political humor in our show!"

The Brain scoffed. "Political humor? _Us?_" he demanded almost seriously, encouraged by whatever laughs he'd just generated outside his Pinky-comprised audience. "It's the _government_ that has been formulating a satire of _me!_ How ELSE could they come up with the idea of a _large-eared_ individual attempting to take over the world?"

—_Slight apologies to Mr. B. if he's reading this (which would be more than a little scary), but he should see all the _CLINTON_ jokes during the series's original run.—_

A possibly life-saving disclaimer out of the way, Brain turned his attention to the television set, which was still on. A fuzzy, black-and-white movie was playing, and on the screen a man in a deerstalker cap stuck a large clay pipe into his mouth, brooding quietly.

"Pinky, turn that _off_," Brain commanded, having finished with political jokes for the time being. "I need to ponder."

For the first time in, well, longer than would seem possible, Pinky disobeyed a direct order. "But I _can't_ turn it off, Brain!" he protested, gesticulating wildly at the screen. "It's Sherlock Holmes! Oooh, I've GOT to watch!" So proclaiming, he plopped himself down on the floor and stared hypnotically at the screen.

Somewhere in the Brain's massive..._brain_, a few gears quietly began turning. "Why have you...'got to watch'?" He spoke slowly, less angry than he normally would be. Depending upon Pinky's reply...

Pinky drew in a massive breath in astonishment. "It's _Sherlock Holmes_, Brain!!!" he repeated, as if that was quite answer enough, and started flailing his arms again. "Sherlock Holmes! Like the Holmes of Sherlock! Like the Holmes of Watson! Like the Sherlock of Hemlock!—No, wait, not _quite_ the last one...IT'S **SHERLOCK HOLMES**, BRAIN!!"

A long career with Pinky as his sidekick had equipped Brain with, if nothing else, a sense of patience. "I'm going to ask for clarification now, Pinky," he informed the taller mouse testily. (I didn't say he was patient and _happy_.) "Are you willing to explain just a _tiny_ bit MORE?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..." Pinky thought, scratching his head vigorously as the movie continued to play. "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...mmmmmmmmm..._yes_, Brain." He nodded emphatically. "I'm willin' to explain."

Brain looked at his companion, then very calmly strode back to the upturned thimble, tranquilly picked it up, even more demurely walked back towards Pinky and with an utter sense of serenity he smashed it down over Pinky's skull.

"_Zort_," Pinky ejaculated, his voice sounding tinny and robotic from inside the metal sewing tool; it was about the same proportion to him as a normal bucket to an average-sized human being. Without even removing the thimble, the small mouse explained dizzily, "_Everyone's_ gotta watch Sherlock Holmes, Brain! He knows EVERYTHING! I mean, he, he just _looks_ at someone an' he knows EXACTLY how old they are an' their jobs an' how many kids they have an' _everything!_" Groping dazily with his hand, Pinky managed to locate the rim of the thimble and pull it off of his head, making his ears pop back to their normal dimensions. "An' everyone _trusts_ 'im! Why, when people find out that he's Sherlock Holmes, they let 'im do _anything!!_ They even let 'im set a fire once 'cus it helped him find a crook!"

The Brain had stiffened halfway through the monologue, a light sparking behind his pink eyes. (Had he not been so incapacitated, he would most definitely have wondered how in the world Pinky had had the patience/ability to read the original Sherlock Holmes stories, seeing as the diminutive mouse was unaware that almost all of them had become radio broadcasts _and_ TV specials.) Putting down the thimble, Pinky looked over at his companion, then noticed that Brain wasn't moving. He made an odd, inquisitive sound, the onomatopoeia of which is impossible to write save in Chinese characters, then waved his hand in front of Brain's eyes. The stout mouse didn't even blink. Realizing this, Pinky stuck out his tongue, swung his arms around in the air and made all sorts of vocal noises that the Brain would never even tolerate, only to receive no reaction.

Stepping back, Pinky placed a hand under his chin and shut one eye, viewing the situation critically. "So, Brain is in, ummmm, whatchamacallit, a, um, COMMA STATE!"

"A comatose state," a disembodied voice corrected him, looking up from a Macintosh.

"Oh, right. Thanks. _Poit!_" Rubbing his chin and thinking harder than normal, the mouse's blue eyes widened. "So then, I c'n do some things he'd _never_ let me if he was..."

Trailing off, Pinky's eyes misted over. Bending over and leaning close to the Brain, he reached quiveringly towards him—

—and poked him in the head.

Immediately Brain snapped out of his stupor, his eyes refocusing as he grasped Pinky by the shoulders and shook him roughly back and forth. "Pinky!" he cried. "Repeat yourself!"

Obligingly, Pinky poked him again.

Having given the taller mouse a new dent in his forehead, Brain waved an arm frantically. "No, Pinky, _reiterate_ yourself! _Reiterate!_"

Pinky gulped slightly, appearing nervous. "In front a' all these _people?_" he asked in a hushed voice, directly haphazardly towards the readers. "Gee, Brain, I—"

"_NO_, YOU FOOLISH WASTE OF ATOMS!!!!!" Brain shouted irritably, jostling his companion like an old rag doll. "REPEAT WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT SHERLOCK HOLMES!"

"Ohhhhhhhh, is _that_ it?" Pinky chuckled slightly. "Well, Brain, you shoulda' said that the _first_ thi—" Noticing the shorter mouse becoming angrier and angrier, Pinky proceeded to the point. "_Narf!_ Well, all I said was that people let 'im do anything."

"_Exactly!_" At last, Brain released the taller mouse, turning around and walking forwards a few steps in order to regain his personal space, then rubbed his hands together as a plot formed in his mind. "Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant man, respected by all and _trusted_ by all! He was allowed access to everything, permitted to do _anything_, because the populace assumed that, because of his greater intellect, he was simply working good in a way that no one else could understand!" He whirled around again to face Pinky, who was staring at him with a totally blank expression on his face. "Pinky, do you know what I plan to do?"

The taller mouse gasped excitedly, twining his hands together and jumping up and down. "Oh, _Brain!_ You're finally going to ask Dot out! Oh, I always _thought_ you'd be a good couple!"

Brain glowered at him. "Pinky," he remarked acridly, "sometimes I wonder what your parents could have been thinking." He let out a huff of breath, then, crossing his arms, he regained his former composure. "No, Pinky, I shall give the world a _new_ intellectual figurehead, a detective to top _all_ others, a detective the people _themselves_ will elect to RULE THE WORLD!"

Using a toon trick he almost never employed, Brain then began to spin around at a nearly-impossible speed. When he stopped he had on an auburn-checkerboarded deerstalker cap, and as well a collared shirt, slacks (with his jagged tail poking out the back) and mouse-sized shoes. A matching reddish cloak whipped around him dramatically as he raised his fist. "I shall become—**SHERLOCK BRAIN!**"

Pinky began hyperventilating, jumping up and down and pointing at the Brain. "Oh, Brain, look, LOOK!" he cried, glancing around behind him. "Oh LOOK, Brain, it's Sherlock Holmes! C'mon, Brain, where ARE you_OOOOOOOF!_"

Dusting off his palms, Brain tromped off to elaborate on this new plan while Pinky sat and wondered how the lights had gotten turned off so quickly.


	2. Chapter 2

"_You're so cute when you're convulsing." —RJ the Raccoon [from the _Over the Hedge_ comic strip—yes, it was a comic before a movie_

**Chapter 2**

Fun with Dick and Dora (aka "Aw, MAN, I Thought It Was A Oneshot!")

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!" screamed a woman in true overblown horror-movie style, clapping her hands to her face. "AAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!" She paused to gasp for breath, recomposing herself for a moment, then clutched the sides of her face again. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!"

A man in a suit and tie immediately burst into the room, a kitchen with tiled floors and immaculately-polished counters. The man himself was tall, with a pointed nose, dark hair and a thin mustache. "What is it, Dora?" he cried in alarm.

"Oh, Dicky, it's TERRIBLE!" the woman ejaculated, rushing over and throwing herself into his arms. As she had been screaming too loudly before to be described, she was a blonde with short-cropped (but stylishly furnished) hair and somewhat narrow eyes, though right now they were wide with fear. "It's TERRIBLE! It's AWFUL! Oh, Dicky, I can't BEAR it!"

Suddenly there was a _POOF_, and a small puff of smoke erupted on a nearby windowsill. Dick and Dora stared at the cloud in alarm, which seemed to linger for far longer than would seem possible. Then, suddenly, a high-pitched voice emanated strangledly from the cloud as its owner attempted in a strange Cockney accent to sound deep and impressive.

"We are the terrors that SNACK in the NIGHT! We are the overused jokes recycled by fanfiction authors! We are—"

The voice was cut off by a muffled _whumf_, and the smoke cloud dissipated to show two small forms, both white mice, or very small and furry people who just HAPPENED to look like mice. The shorter one, the one with a large head, had on a red-orange deerstalker cap, as well as a matching cape combined with a white collared shirt, gray dress pants and well-polished brown shoes. The taller one was rubbing his head and giggling slightly, and was wearing a bowler hat and a dark brown suit with a green tie and black shoes. He also had an odd-looking, bushy gray mustache affixed below his big red nose.

"Be _quiet_, Pinky!" the shorter one was hissing, glaring at his companion. "We don't desire to—" He suddenly spotted the human pair, though, and stopped short, guiltily hiding behind his back a pair of chalkboard erasers he'd been clapping together.

"Who are you?" Dick demanded, pulling his wife ("Plot exposition in the middle of a sentence!" the author marveled in third person) closer to him.

"We are the—" Pinky tried again, but Brain elbowed him in the gut. This made the taller mouse involuntarily bark like a dog, which earned him some pretty odd stares from everyone nearby, but Brain was able to salvage the dramatic entrance.

"I am SHERLOCK BRAIN, the greatest detective in history!" he boomed, sweeping his index finger into the air as if to remove all doubt of this fact. He would've stopped there, but at a sort of whiny noise coming from Pinky's throat, the Brain sighed and waved a hand dismissively towards his companion. "...And this is my associate Dr. Pinkston."

Dick and Dora blinked, slightly relaxing their hold on each other, but they both still seemed confused. "How did you get in here?" Dora asked.

"Dr. Pinkston" piped up, his big ears stiffening and jostling his bowler. "Ooh! Oh, there was this REALLY BIZARRE plot device! An' it's the author's running gag, where stuff happens an' it ISN'T EXPLAINED, 'cept with stuff that sounds _weeeeeeeeeeeird_ like 'involvin' alligators an' whipped cream, they'—"

"Pinky—'Dr. Pinkston', this is _not_ a fanfiction!" Brain interjected, removing his deerstalker and whapping his assistant with it. Seeing as this wasn't _meant_ to be very painful, it was no surprise that it didn't unduly discomfit the taller mouse. "If this _were_ one," he continued, shoving the hat back onto his immense cranium, "we would have suffered _much_ more abuse before this point! There would have been, oh, I don't know, perhaps an ANVIL falling from the sky, or a ridiculously large _hammer!_"

By a freak coincidence, at that very moment a helicopter carrying a huge shipment of barbells passed overhead, and in an attempt to avoid a trio of squabbling pigeons dropped some of its cargo.

_CRASHTHUNK_**SPLAT**.

Where before there had stood a stout mouse in a dapper outfit, there was now merely two hunks of metal on a rod.

"...This is _excruciatingly_ painful."

"_Poit!_" Pinky agreed weakly, then began turning his pockets inside-out in search of something. After a moment his eyes lit up and he removed his bowler hat, rummaging about in it with his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth. After tossing aside a chain of handkerchiefs, a bouquet of flowers and a bucktoothed blue rabbit in a red sweatshirt, the small mouse brightened, and he finally produced a magnet. Aiming it at the barbell, he managed to make it slide horizontally off of the Brain, who had the appearance of someone who'd just had a steamroller run over them. Pinky, dropping the magnet and replacing his _chapeau_, scurried over to his companion and peeled him off the windowsill, flapping him in the air like a newly-laundered shirt until the Brain popped back to his normal dimensions and shakily regained his footing.

"W-well, that was rather an unlikely occu_**WHOA!**_" The Brain's voice raised in emotion as he suddenly stepped off the windowsill, landing with a thud inside the (mercifully or UNmercifully?) empty sink. As Brain groaned brokenly, face-down on the white...tile...thing...the white inside of the sink, Pinky peeped over the edge.

"Gee, that looks like FUN, Sherlock Brain!" he decided, then jumped off the edge of the sink himself in cannonball position. "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAHA_ZORT!_"

As is so typical of those sorts of situations, Brain was just struggling to raise himself to his elbows when his spine was compressed by the weight of a lanky mouse crashing down on top of it.

The two mice were given a quick and convenient cut-scene to clamber out of the sink, where Dick and Dora were still momentarily confused. Brain cracked his spine back into place, then tried to regain control of the situation. "A-as I stated earlier," he resumed, his voice wobbling slightly off-pitch as his cerebellum attempted to recompose itself, "I am the great—greatest detective in history. Whaaaaaaa...what is your problem?"

At that, Dora began shuddering again. "Ohhh...OH, IT'S _AWFUL!_" she cried, burying her face in Dick's jacket. She lifted a quivering finger, pointing at a table in the middle of the room. Brain and Pinky slowly turned in the direction she indicated, and the taller mouse let out a gasp of horror.

On the table was a lidless jar, plainly labeled "Cookies", lying on its side and clearly empty.

Brain gave the woman a look that conveyed simultaneously disbelief and outright indignance. "An empty _cookie jar?!_ THAT is why you summoned the greatest detective in history?"

"But we _didn't_ summon you!" Dick attempted to protest, but the Brain was not one to hear his mistakes being pointed out and so ignored him.

"I am _the greatest detective in history!_" he repeated, making a sweeping gesture with his hand. "I do not deal with _trivialities!_"

"But Sherlock Braaaaaaaaaaaaain," Pinky whined, taking off his bowler and twiddling it in his hands. His eyes widened into a Bambi look, and even the Brain was hard-pressed to resist it.

"Ohhhhh...Oh, all RIGHT!" Brain snapped, and, making an elaborate show of not liking it, he climbed down cupboard handles to the floor below, crossing over to the table with the cookie jar and began to climb up one of the legs. Pinky scampered along behind, his hat back on his head and his face a mask of excitement. "I suppose I _do_ trade in trivialities...after all, I've spent many a day attempting to comprehend your _mind_."

(Somewhere off in the distance, Wakko Warner made a rimshot on a set of drums...)

At long last, the "greatest detective in history" managed to ascend to the tabletop and paced around the perimeter of the empty jar, narrowing his eyes and rubbing his chin as Dick, Dora and Pinky watched on with bated breath. After a while, Brain looked up at the two humans, blazing with the fervor of a solved mystery—but then he remembered that he was supposed to be annoyed and quickly regained a matching countenance. "This is ridiculously _simple!_" he admonished his entire audience, both the ones in the room and those that he didn't want to know were reading this. Striding up to Dora, he planted his feet firmly apart and pointed accusingly at her. "Your horror at the empty cookie jar is _obviously_ a façade! YOU ate all those cookies!"

Dora gasped, putting both hands over her heart. Dick stepped forth indignantly, looking down at the Brain from a massive height. "How dare you accuse her of committing this _horrible_ crime!" he cried, though Brain didn't flinch. "Where's your _proof?!_"

The Brain glared up at the man, as though tired of being the only one in the room with an Einsteinian IQ. ("Including the author, for the use of the term 'Einsteinian'," Brain muttered, then clapped his hands over his mouth in surprise and annoyance at having admitted the possibility of a fanfiction.) Looking up from his impossibly fourth-wall-demolishing comment, Brain waved a commanding hand at Pinky, then pointed to the edge of the table and made a demonstrative gesture. Pinky paused, a bit confused, then scampered off towards the location Brain had indicated and copied the gesture he'd made. To his surprise, the lanky mouse found that he'd just opened a drawer set beneath the table, and poked his head curiously inside. The first thing he spotted was a flashy-looking brochure on glossy paper, so he immediately pulled that out.

"OOOH! Oooh, LOOK, Sherlock Brain!" shouted Pinky, hopping up and down and flapping the brochure in the air before scampering over to Brain's side. "It's a brochure for the 'Flavio an' Marita' home dietin' thing! _Narf!_ I ordered one a' these last week TOO! Fer the free food."

For a moment Brain's deadpan expression flickered into a smug grin. "_That_ is my proof. You, Dora,"—here he pointed up at the human woman for effect, _and_ in case his audience was too thick-witted to tell who he meant—"have been going on a diet for several weeks now. To the best of my knowledge—which is to say, it indefinitely _must_ be so—this 'Flavio and Marita' diet forbids an excess of glucose." Seeing the blank expressions on Dick, Dora _and_ Pinky, Brain sighed. "She cannot consume SUGAR-RELATED PRODUCTS! So, having been _deprived_ of sugar for so long, Dora's craving became unsatiable. So she _ate the cookies_. When she returned to herself, however, she realized that she could _not_ allow her husband—YOU, Dick—to discover that she had cheated on her diet. So she created an overdramatic scene in order to throw the blame off of herself."

Dick and Dora were in utter shock. "B-b-but," Dora began, gesturing wildly, "how did you _know_ I'd been on a diet?! That brochure was in a closed drawer, and you couldn't have _seen_ it before your assistant pulled it out!"

For once, Brain gave in and used a cliché. "Elementary, my dear Dora," he responded, his chest—what there was—puffed out with pride and more than a little megalomania. "Your complexion is the same hue as one who has experienced a severe decrease in their normal glucose intakes for at least several days. As well, your dress—one custom-made by a tailor—is slightly loose around your midriff, indicating that you have lost at least an ounce in weight since the dress was made. If you put these facts together, then what is that we have gotten?"

"BIBBIDI BOBBIDI BOO!" Pinky ejaculated, unable to pass up the gag. Brain shot a swift glare at him, then conked him over the head before continuing.

"The inevitable conclusion is that Dora has been dieting, as was stated before."

Dick stepped forwards, practically at a loss for words. "But how did you know that I was Dora's husband?!"

Brain let out another sigh. "I realize that I _am_ the most intelligent being in the room, but you needn't be _that_ obtuse," he glowered. "This, again, is excruciatingly obvious. You, sir, had to have been in the house to have responded that quickly when you screamed. As well, there is your closeness to this woman, holding her in such a fashion while she was alarmed and defending her reputation after I descried her as the culprit. Combine this with the fact that this is based on a _children's_ show, for goodness's sake, and the _only_ possible solution is marriage."

He remained in his accusatory pose for about a nanosecond more before stiffening again at this slip of cosmic awareness, then the Brain silently berated himself again for thinking that this could be any form of fanfiction. After all, things _were_ going HIS way, and he hadn't been unduly tortured as of yet.

"_Poit!_" interjected Pinky, about to verbally disprove the Brain's thought. "An' there was that sentence with the plot exposition, you know, _' "Who are you?" Dick demanded, pullin' his wi—'_ "

He didn't get to finish that thought either, since the Brain once again reached up, grasped the taller mouse's nose and yanked it downwards, bringing Pinky crashing upside-down on the tabletop. As Pinky began laughing his head off, though, Dick raised a point that he'd obviously been thinking on for a while. "Wait a minute," he began, rubbing his chin and staring accusingly at Brain beneath his dark eyebrows, "how did you know that I was named Dick? And that my wife's name was Dora?"

"I—" Brain began, a bit startled at this realization, but Pinky cut him off.

"IT'S A PLOT HOLE!"

This caused Brain to use his fist again. "Clearly a...result of you having, eh...called each other by name while we were here!" the detective explained hastily, making it up as he went along, and began shuffling his feet nervously. "It, ehh, has..._nothing_ to do with any...existential theologies, or...the presence of a fanfiction author...since this is NOT an amateur...and illegal form of...prose..." Trailing off, the Brain pointed up at Dora and made an uncharacteristically juvenile escape. "Well, SHE cheated on her diet!"

Dora looked down at the lab mouse, slightly guiltily but also with a degree of awe. "W-well, yes, I cheated on my diet," she admitted, making her husband jerk with surprise, "but you must truly _be_ the greatest detective in history! I have to go tell all my friends about you, Mr. Sherlock Brain!"

"_YESSSSS!_" The Brain raised his fists in triumph as Dick and Dora scurried off to talk to everyone they could find. "PINKY, _are you pondering what I'm pondering?!_"

Blinking the twittering birds out of his eyes, Pinky lifted his head feebly, nearly knocking off his already-askew mustache. "Well, I _think_ so, Sherlock Brain...but if you're a _great detective_, an' you're a _mouse_, then i'in't that just ASKIN' for a lawsuit?"

The Brain paused, then raised an eyebrow as he thought this over. "That..._wasn't_ what I was pondering, but a worthy consideration nonetheless." Helping the taller mouse to his feet, Brain continued, "No, Pinky, the plan is already _working!_ That unsuspecting couple is _already_ spreading the legacy of Sherlock Brain across the city, and, soon, everyone in the WORLD will know of me!"

In a rare fit of ecstasy, Brain grabbed Pinky's wrists and spun him around once before snapping back to himself and letting go. The oblivious Pinky, however, remained spinning on his own for a while longer before realizing that Brain had stopped. "This is..._incredible!_" Brain sighed whimsically, thrilling in the mostly-painless accomplishments he'd made so far. "Not only is my plan _succeeding_, I am able to rest secure in the knowledge that 'The Illustrious Crackpot' is far away and, at _last_, not tormenting us in an inane fanfiction." Straightening up, the stout lab mouse cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted up into the sky above. "_THIS_ is the proverbial 'good times', you despicable dilettante author! I have ceased carrying out my position of acting as your incessantly-tortured main character! **HA!**"

However, for old times' sake, a few clicks on the keyboard brought a ceiling tile damaged in the previous helicopter drop crashing down on both mice before the chapter came to an end.


	3. Chapter 3

_Suddenly I stop typing, and look up. I've just come up with an idea for something, but I don't know how to word it..._

_Pausing for a moment to gather my thoughts, I begin to type again:_

In this chapter, and in some to come, there will be a few moments where the characters say some things (nonessential to the plot) in foreign languages. If you know what the phrases mean, please don't include that information in a review. I can't tell you any more right now, but I promise we'll get back to it in the last chapter.

_Satisfied with this, I nod sharply and get on with things._

And, without further ado, the random pointless quote:

"I read somewhere that seventy-seven percent of the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I'm more intrigued by the twenty-three percent who seem to be doing quite well for themselves." —Emo Philips

**Chapter 3**

There's Something About Larry (aka "The Cameo Chapter", aka "The Really Long Chapter But I'm Sorry")

Within a few days, Sherlock Brain had a feature on him in the newspaper. He was very modest, answering every question with a casual air and insisting that he was only the average superintelligent lab mouse out to take over the wo—er, to help those in need.

The newspaper also listed the address of the great detective's new office, an apartment in the middle of Burbank. Brain had been slightly hesitant about relocating from the lab, nervous that the scientists would suspect something, but in the end had closed the deal and successfully moved out of Acme Labs.

Back in said laboratory, a tall man in a white coat hunched over something on a lab table, prodding it with a sort of electric welder and doing otherwise scientific things to it. Next to him was a woman with sandy hair and professional-looking glasses, who was skimming the latest issue of _Mitochondria in Action_ when she suddenly looked up.

"It's too bad about those mice escaping, isn't it?" she remarked.

At the sound of her voice, the experimenting scientist looked up from his project and shifted his goggles up to the top of his head. "What mice?"

The female scientist blinked. "You know, the lab mice we had in that cage over there," she replied, pointing at the now-vacant cage. "Remember? We performed all those gene-splicing experiments on them, but it never had any effect...except the one with the big head started getting moody and unresponsive."

"Sounds like most of my relationships," the other scientist quipped, then scratched his head. "No, seriously, we had _mice?_"

"Yup."

The experimenting scientist shook his head from side to side. "So _that's_ why I'd always hear those squeaking sounds..." he marveled, then, replacing his goggles, triumphantly lifted up his newest invention—a paddleball.

* * *

Back in the offices of Sherlock Brain (which just _happened_ to be flat number 122B on a road called Bakery Street), the master detective himself sat on a matchbox on top of a human-sized wooden desk in his familiar cape and deerstalker, his fingers steepled beneath his chin as he looked wearily at the character sitting across from him, who shall remain momentarily anonymous. Pinky, still wearing the suit, bowler and fake mustache, was perched just above and behind Brain on top of a lengthy anthology of mystery stories, twiddling a small umbrella that looked suspiciously like the kind of thing they stick in fancy drinks. The Brain himself let out a long sigh, wiping a hand over his immense forehead and clearly displaying the deep bags under his eyes. "Perhaps this should be attempted _again_."

"OK!" chirped the still-slightly-anonymous character sitting on the desk across from him, his voice kind of high-pitched and a bit nasal. To dispel the (probably nonexistent) feeling of suspense, I shall graciously decide to describe the pudgy-yet-taller-than-Brain white mouse with a long snout, green-tinted eyes and two tufts of brown hair just on top of each of his ears. Uncharacteristically for him, though, he was clothed, wearing a tannish-yellow suit coat over a white collared shirt and striped necktie, his feet shod in dusty brown shoes and a mouse-sized strawboater hat nestled on top of his head. The mouse cocked his head at Brain, whispering too loudly to be effective, "Good thinking—plot exposition fer the readers."

The Brain let out a groan, sliding forwards on the matchbox as he narrowed his eyes at the other mouse. "There _are_ no readers," he insisted, too worn-out from the conversation to do much more. "This is _not_ a fanfiction, though with YOU adding on to my misfortune even I am beginning to have my _doubts_. Now merely iterate your piece."

The other mouse blinked as he tried to take all this in, then waved cheerily at the readers. "Hi there! I'm Larry!"

(Unfortunately, though, there is the high probability that those readers who haven't purchased volume 2 of the _P&B_ DVDs won't recognize this prolific cameo. So, in effect, the point of the Larry episode is proven once more.)

"I _know_ you're Larry, _Larry_," Brain snapped, mistakenly thinking that Larry had been introducing himself to the detective and not the audience. "_Explain the meaning behind your presence_."

Larry cocked his head again, scratching his ear slightly, then jerked a thumb at himself and grinned toothily. "Well," he declared, puffing out his chest, "I'M Larry!"

Pinky gasped as the umbrella suddenly opened, nearly making him topple off the book he was sitting on. "E-_gad!_" he ejaculated, scrambling to his knees and looking over at the incredibly insignificant mouse. "YOU'RE Larry? Oh, GOSH, Brain, did _you_ know that?!"

The Brain glared up at his associate, made a swift mental calculation and then brought his foot down hard on the wooden desk. The blow, since it was made in the precise spot on the desktop that Brain had intended, sent a shockwave rippling straight towards the book and sent Pinky tumbling off the cover. He was slightly stunned for a second, then with a happy "_Narf!_" the taller mouse burst out laughing. Contrastingly, Brain's bloodshot eyes were twitching irritably, and his tone was sharp as he spoke once more to Larry.

"Now. Describe. The. Trouble. Affecting. Your. Sadly. Nonexistent. Mind."

"Ohhhhhhhhh..." Larry grinned rather sheepishly, scratching one of his ears and slightly dislodging his strawboater hat. His hairless pink tail, which was poking out of the seat of his trousers, thumped nervously against the floor. "Well, ehhh...I've kinda got a problem. Y'see, ummm..." Larry paused and looked up, raising his index finger. "Say, d'you have any cheese?"

Fortunately for the story, however, the sight of Brain standing up menacingly was enough for Larry to get back on track. "A-anyways, y'see, I...oh, this's so EMBARRASSIN'." Larry paused to gratuitously bury his head in his hands, peeping cautiously out through his fingers to reassure himself that Brain, while quivering with annoyance, wasn't planning any violent actions yet. "Eh, well, y'know, I've been livin' in an apartment since ya kicked me out, an' some folks is...well, um, they's..." At last Larry lifted his face off his palms, threw his head back and tore at his bushy hair. "THEY THINK I'M STEALIN' CABLE!"

There was a pause. A long, slooooooooow pause.

And the greatest detective in history deduced that he was getting a migraine.

In that instant, though, Pinky's ears straightened, and he let out a congested giggle, which he tried to muffle by slapping his hands over his mouth. But the chuckle grew, and pretty soon it exploded out of Pinky with a massive "_FJORD!!_"

"WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! _TROZ!_ GWAHAHAHAHAHAAA!! OH—_POIT!_—YAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" The little mouse was practically convulsing, rolling all over the tabletop, his sides shaking up and down like a jackhammer, and he was laughing so hard that he'd started to choke.

"Pinky—eh, _Dr. Pinkston!_" Brain snapped, sharply but also a bit worriedly. Jumping off the matchbox, he hurried over to Pinky and began shaking him roughly by the shoulders. " 'Dr. Pinkston', _control_ yourself! His predicament isn't _humorous_, it's DEPLORABLY TRIVIAL AND USELESSLY INCONSEQUENTIAL!"

Pinky gasped, trying to make his chuckles subside. "I—_Zort_—w-well, Sherlock B-B-Brain—WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!—it's not—it's not—" Heaving in a giant breath, Pinky swung his arm over Brain's head and pointed to Larry. "IT'S **LARRY THE CABLE GUY!**"

As the author knows nothing of Larry the Cable Guy save his name (and the fact that he is well-acquainted with an AMAZING book called _Politically Correct Bedtime Stories_ by James Finn Garner), Crackpot cannot, while narrating in third person, come up with a witty retort for either the Brain or Larry. So just assume that one of them came up with a funny remark, and we'll skip over that part for now.

"Oh, PLEAAAAAAASE, Brain!—um, I mean, Sherlock Brain!!" Larry pleaded, falling to his knees before the great detective. "C'mon, help me out here! You _gotta_ tell 'em that I'm not stealin' cable!" His eyes grew ridiculously wide. "PLEEEEEEEEEASE, Brain—'cus I'm LARRY!"

The Brain made a slightly disgusted face and jerked his foot out of Larry's grasp. "I wouldn't even _comprehend_ doing this 'because you're Larry'! I've consistently found you utterly _repugnant!_"

Larry's eyes widened even further, were that possible, and they began to shine rather improbably. (Scientists generally referred to this as "The Disney Effect".) "Oh, PLEEEEASE, Sherlock Brain!" he implored, then burst into a series of fake sobs. "C'mon, you've GOTTA help me! I'm Larry! Hi there! I mean it, I'm really Larry! An' you gotta help me out! Because I'm Larry! And I need your help! As Larry! Not as someone else, as LARRY! An' I need YOUR help! You remember the old times? With me? Larry? An' you'd call me Larry? An' I'd call me Larry? An' you'd help me? Like when I had a headache, you'd distract me by pulling my nose? An' then I wouldn't care about the headache no more? 'Cus my nose would hurt? Don't you remember? C'mon, I lived next door to you! I lived in the same cage as you! I was LARRY! Don't you remember me? Larry?"

Pinky made a nasal snort and threw his arms into the air, dancing happily. _"Hey do you remember that guy Larry next door, well he always was the neighborhood clo—"_

"PINKY! _STOP_ IT!" Brain interrupted sharply, shuddering and clapping his hands to his ears. "You KNOW what that 'Yankovic' fellow does to my tympanic structure!"

Meanwhile, Larry continued begging. "Oh, Brain, PLEEEEEEASE!" he continued, clawing dramatically at the air. "You GOTTA help! I'm Larry, remember? Don't you wanna help Larry? 'Cus I'M Larry! And—"

"ENOUGH!!" Brain was at last fully on the brink of insanity, and made a swiping motion at the air just above Larry's head. "Now, if you'll _please_ merely REFRAIN from all further _speech!_"

Larry immediately brightened. "OK!" he chirruped happily in direct defiance of Brain's command, then grabbed both Brain and Pinky by the wrists and started dragging them away. "I'll take you to my apartment! You know, MY apartment! _LARRY'S_ apartment!!"

"Oooooh, that sounds LOVELY!" Pinky piped up, but just then Larry accidentally stepped off the edge of the desk and all three mice plummeted to the floor with a sickening _splat_.

"Indeed it does, Doctor," Brain mumbled incoherently. "Indeeeeeeed it doessssss..."

* * *

A swift cutscene later, the master detective marched in through the human-sized door of Larry's apartment, which was located someplace I regrettably can't disclose (the third floor of that building on Tingblad Street). It was small—well, for human standards—and kind of dusty, with a hardwood floor and a green, moth-eaten, human-sized beanbag chair seated in front of a shabby television set. Aside from that, the room was only sparsely furnished, though one wall contained a doorless frame leading into a kitchen. As well, just behind the TV, there was a hardwood door that seemed firmly closed.

"What a _neat_ place! _NARF!_" Pinky marveled, practically bowling Brain over in his enthusiasm to enter the apartment. He placed a hand to his face, staring up at the ill-lit room. "An' you can AFFORD it? Oh, Brain, c'n _we_ get a house like this?"

Brain narrowed his eyes at his companion. "Only if I get a frontal lobotomy," he muttered, sweeping his eyes across the room as well. He stared at the closed door the longest, looking for all the world as if he was trying to knock it down through sheer force of will—probably in hopes of escape. However, he was interrupted in this quest as Larry accidentally tripped over him, knocking them both to the floor.

"Hi! I'm Larry!" he greeted again while Brain seethed beneath him. Muttering something unprintable, Brain struggled to his feet and shoved Larry roughly off of him, brushing down the sleeves of his suit coat.

"_Vielle cloche!_" he barked.

Both Pinky and Larry blinked. "Ehhhhh...come ag'in, Brain?" Pinky inquired.

Brain rolled his eyes and huffed derogatorily. "It's French for _idiot_." Though he was obviously still somewhat incensed, the Brain always took immense pride in any accomplishments of his higher intellect, and his countenance became that of smug superiority. "I've begun to familiarize myself with various languages since our misadventure in France."

("Yessss!" cheered the author, pumping a fist while still typing. "I managed to put in a plug for my OTHER insanely long _P&B_ story!")

Pinky blinked again, but then threw his hands up into the air. "Me too, Brain! _MEE-NAH FUHRTUHR LOOKTAHR SUM BUHNAHNER!_"

This time it was Brain who cocked his head to the side, Larry mirroring his movements in an attempt to be noticed. However, while Larry's expression was merely curious and attention-starved, Brain's countenance was one of disdain. "...Do you even know what that _means?_"

Raising his forefinger to answer, Pinky suddenly stopped, then rubbed the top of his bowler hat and shrugged. "Nope."

Doubtless Brain would have rattled off some more choice insults, but at that moment in stepped a tall, heavily made-up woman with blonde hair that cascaded down her shoulders, wearing a red suit coat and skirt and a much-too-wide smile. Directly following her was a complete camera crew, including lights men and microphone men and lounging-around-and-not-looking-like-they're-doing-anything-but-they-get-paid-for-it men. "Hiiiii, this's Mary Heartless," the woman beamed at one of the cameramen as one of the others bent down for a close-up of Brain, who didn't look _completely_ annoyed, "and here at K-Acme TV we've got an EXCLUSIVE SCOOP on a case being investigated by none other than that oh-so-famous detective, Brain!"

Pinky gasped, drawing closer to Brain. "How did these people get HERE, Sherlock Brain?" he asked in an undertone, twirling his umbrella nervously.

Brain took a moment to look away from the camera and arch his eyebrow at the taller mouse, as if half-expecting him to be joking. Larry, who was standing behind the Brain, waved excitedly and mouthed "I'm Larry" at anyone who would pay attention. "What are you _talking_ about, Pinky?" Brain hissed, making a swift motion as if to hit Pinky. "We ran into this camera crew upon exiting my office! Can't you recall it?"

Pinky shook his head vigorously, though he seemed to have suddenly understood the problem. "Nuh-uh, Brain. That was durin' the _cutscene_."

"What—" Making a split-second decision not to pursue the matter, Brain waved a hand irritably at his companion. "Never mind. I haven't the time to deal with your mental insecurities." Looking up at the expectant cameraman, Brain cleared his throat, beckoning the microphone down to him (and taking the opportunity to shove Larry into the background). The soundman gingerly lowered it, trying his hardest to keep it from hitting the ground.

"_Ahem_," coughed Brain, making sure the camera was pointed at him, then proceeded to business. "As you undoubtedly know, dear viewers, I am in the midst of probing into the dire predicament of a...an ACQUAINTANCE of mine, Larry." Larry waved emphatically, but the camera angle just _happened_ cut him out of the shot. "Larry enlisted my assistance because he has been accused of illicitly obtaining service from cable networks."

"_Poit!_" Pinky interjected, suddenly appearing from behind Brain. "'At means he's been stealing cable!" He paused then, and slooooooowly scratched his head. "Um, I _think_ so...well—"

A well-executed foot motion quickly knocked Pinky out of the camera's field of view, and Brain stepped back into the shot. "However, being the single most intellectually gifted detective in the entirety of the spacer-time continuum, it shall prove an insignificant matter for me to deduce whether or not this is the case."

Behind him, Mary Heartless's smile faltered as her seldom-used mental organs attempted to translate this to newscaster-speak, but the Brain took no notice, instead reaching into his pocket and, using another toon trick, produced some sort of mechanical device that looked far too big to have fit in his coat. It appeared to be some sort of box-shaped, old-fashioned radio with the antenna extended, except what appeared to be a microprocessor had been messily inserted into the top and the apparatus was connected by a wire to an EtchASketch™. There was a surprised gasp from all gathered (the loudest of which was from Pinky, but that was because he'd just realized that his umbrella looked almost exactly like Mary Poppins's), and, with a self-satisfied, smug expression, Brain launched into some expository dialogue.

"This is a device which I created myself, to be used in a ploy for global domina—" He caught himself, and quickly covered up his slip. "...Ehhhh, to be used for...RECREATION, eh, in my, ah, spare time. Simply put, it can detect and identify the microscopic particles present in the atmosphere, of which an example is a broadcast signal. So, should Larry truly be a recipient of more unorthodox cable broadcasts, the signature of the broadcast particles would be slightly different from those obtained legally, as the cable box, no doubt, would be receiving the broadcasts from a piggyback device on the transmitter rather than from the transmitter itself."

Though there shouldn't have been any crickets in the area at this time, the author wrote them in and they began chirping. Doubtless Brain would normally have noticed this irregularity in their migration patterns, but he was too irritated to comment and instead let out a grumbling sigh.

"I can tell if he's _stealing cable_ or not."

There was a unanimous "Ohhhhhhhhh". And an "I'm Larry!", but that won't be mentioned.

"But you already _mentioned_ it!" Pinky piped up, removing his bowler and scratching his forehead confusedly. The others in the room stared at him blankly, save the Brain, who was trying desperately to ignore the narrational sentences he himself was hearing in his mind.

Instead, he carried his invention behind Larry's television, the cameras following his every move. Once there, Brain put his invention on the floor, breathing a bit raggedly since the device was bigger than he was, and repositioned it so it was leaning against the back of the set with the EtchASketch™ facing outwards. Taking off his deerstalker to mop his brow, the Brain poked his head around the side of the TV. "Turn the television on, Dr. Pinkston!"

The cameramen immediately swiveled around to direct their shots at Pinky, who was rubbing the back of his neck and looking a little nervous. "Well, uh, Br—Sherlock Brain, (_Fjord_), I—eh, well, I dunno if I'm quite appealin' in THAT way, an'—" Suddenly, though, his ears sprang up and his back arched spasmodically. "Ohhhhhh, y'mean—I GET IT!"

Thus enlightened, Pinky immediately scampered up to the TV, shimmied up the side and clicked the power on. There was a fizzling sound, and, after Pinky dropped to the floor with a _splat_ and a giggle, the picture faded into view, showing the Brain tapping his foot impatiently from behind the set just a second after the real Brain did so.

"I would ask what was going on in your mind," he commented derisively, echoed eerily by himself on the TV set, "except I realize that it's doing a wonderful impression of a Mary Kay consultant."

Abruptly abandoning the topic before he was sued, Brain pressed the radio's "on" button and fiddled with the antenna, adjusting the FM dial as well and watching intently as the EtchASketch™'s knobs twisted on their own, drawing a series of diagonal lines on the screen. After a time the great detective paused, furrowing his brow and practically pressing his small red nose against the EtchASketch™, rubbing his chin furiously. Then his head jerked up sharply and he whirled around to face the closed door behind him. A grin flitted momentarily across his face, but he quickly resumed a dour expression as he turned his invention off.

"You may turn off the television now," he announced flatly, though the corners of his mouth kept trying to curl upwards on him. The request was swiftly obeyed, and Brain lost his echo effect. (In the depths of his immense ego, he felt empty without it...) Then, stowing the invention in his toon pocket again, he strode purposefully and a little jauntily out in front of the TV set. Mary Heartless quickly rushed up to him, her high heels clattering against the rough floor, and bent over more as far as she could to get in the same shot as him.

"Well, Sherlock Brain?" she inquired breathlessly, shoving her microphone at his face. "What's the decision? Is...what's-his-name stealing cable or not?"

"I'm Larry!" Larry called from the background, jumping up in the air in an attempt to be noticed, but Mary's..._torso_ blocked him from the camera's field of view.

Brain deliberated suspensefully, arching an eyebrow at the camera as the newscaster's long legs wobbled from the strain of keeping her in such a pose for so long. Everyone in the room was hanging on to Brain's every movement—Pinky appeared to be doing so literally, as he soon leaned too far forwards and landed on his face. At last, however, Brain coughed, and looked back up at the camera with a victorious, megalomaniacal expression.

"Larry is NOT guilty of stealing cable," he proclaimed quietly, then, in a movement so fast that most viewers only caught it in the instant replay, he whipped around and pointed directly at the closed door, "BUT _HE_ IS!"

Brain would've run up and slammed the door open at that point, but he was so small that he wouldn't have been able to reach the doorknob unassisted. So, instead, a lounging-around-and-not-looking-like-he's-doing-anything-but-he-gets-paid-for-it man who happened to look like Sylvester Stallone ran up and kicked the door in for him.

The door was obviously a barrier between two separate apartments, since the next room was rather better-furnished than the one they were in, with a thick beige carpet on the floor and a few ornate wooden chairs arranged around a glass-top coffee table by a large flatscreen television, probably an HD model. And, on top of the table, using a screwdriver on what looked suspiciously like a working model AT-AT Walker, was a small, golden-brown hamster with an immensely large forehead and bloodshot pink eyes.

"What is the meaning of thi—" he began in a British-accented voice, but was unable to finish as a brigade of policemen burst in through another door, waving their weapons around impressively but a bit worryingly.

"YOU'RE UNDER ARREST FOR STEALING CABLE, MISTER!" shouted one of the officers in a much-too-loud voice as the entire brigade converged upon the hamster, hoisting him into the air (though it really only took one person to do this) and parading him out of the room.

"Your accusation is sorely unfounded!" protested the hamster angrily, his voice becoming fainter and fainter as he was carted further away. "I _never_ watch those ghastly cable shows! Do you insult my intellect enough to suggest that I would lower myself to keep up with _Survivor_?! You'll be hearing from my lawyer—ME! I simply will not..."

Soon enough the hamster and the policemen were out of earshot, as well as the newspeople, who had clattered off after them to get an interview with the felon. So, within a minute, the only ones left in the room were Pinky and Brain.

Well, Larry was still there, but his presence was barely worth noting.

"Gee, Sherlock Brain, that was AMAZIN'!" Pinky marveled, dancing lightly in place and clutching his umbrella to his chest. "How'd'ya know that Snowball was stealin' cable?"

"Hello there!" Larry interjected, waving at Pinky and Brain in an attempt to become an active part of the story again. However, he was once more unceremoniously ignored.

"That, my dear Pinkston, is stunning in its simplicity," Brain answered, grinning wickedly in spite of himself, and adjusted his deerstalker in an attempt to hide the smirk. "Snowball was, in all actuality, _innocent_. I fabricated that falsehood myself." He let slip a derisive laugh, which sounded (to his eternal embarrassment) like a high-pitched giggle. "After all, even a great detective must allow himself _some_ enjoyment."

"Hiya!" Larry tried again, jumping up and down in place. "Hi! He-lloooo! Heya! Hey! Hey! Hi, I'm Larry!"

"_Zort!_" Pinky ejaculated, spreading his arms wide. "I don't really understand what you just said!" After that statement, though, he stiffened and scratched his head. "But, uhm, Sherlock Brain, how'd'ya know that Snowball lived next door?"

"I'm Larry! Hi! Larry! Right here! Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's LARRY! Aw, c'_mon_, guys!"

"Yet another elementary consideration." Finding that he couldn't hide his triumphant smile, Brain instead wore it openly, looking distressingly like he was about to go for someone's throat. "It was quite easy to detect the scent of _Mesocricetus auratus_, even through a thick wooden door." Here Brain paused, then emitted a dark chuckle. "Or of _animus stolidus_."

Pinky blinked, rubbing his fake mustache. "What, Brain?"

Still snickering a little, Brain dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head. "Don't concern yourself unduly over it, Pinky."

"And Larry!" shouted you-know-who, but he'd realized at last that his efforts were futile and that his role as a necessary character had ended several pages ago. So, shoulders slumping, Larry gritted his teeth and muttered "I'm goin' back ta' Zeppo" before walking out the door and out of this story.

Chortling a little for form, and not even noticing Larry's departure, Pinky suddenly wiped his eyes and looked up at Brain. "Gee, Brain, we haven't seen Snowball in _so_ long. Let's invite him to dinner sometime!"

It was a minute or so before the Brain stopped his chuckling and realized what Pinky had just said. Then he arched an eyebrow at him in disbelief. "Pinky," he began slowly and deliberately, "Snowball is evil _incarnate_. He is quite possibly one of the most malevolent, degenerate, abhorrent hamsters to come into existence. Lest you forget, he attempted to _kill_ us several times." Brain paused to let this sink in. "And you want to invite him to _dinner?_"

"Well," Pinky replied, leaning casually on the handle of his umbrella, "it'd make for a nice conversation starter."

And so, since the author is bored and can't exactly think of a better ending (especially since both of the other chapters have _already_ ended with one or more of our heroes in pain), that punch line shall close the chapter. Don't forget to brush your teeth!


	4. Chapter 4

"_Murder is only an extroverted suicide." —Graham Chapman_

**Chapter 4**

Everything Tastes Better With _Python_ (aka "The Silly Chapter")

Within a few more weeks, Sherlock Brain was a household name and, on a national average, the only phrase uttered more than "Sherlock Brain's done it again!" was "Honey, can you unclog the toilet for me?" But even Brain knew that it would be hard to beat that second one, and so didn't begrudge the populace for it.

Every magazine had his picture on the cover, from _Time_ (congratulating themselves on naming him "Person of the Year 2006" before anyone knew he existed) to _Cosmo Girl_ (discussing the fact that megalomaniacal nerds were coming back into fashion) to _Better Homes and Gardens_ (wherein Sherlock Brain deduced exactly which fertilizers actually _worked_). The History Channel was broadcasting a six-hour documentary on him, the Biography channel had serialized a TV show based on his exploits starring Andy Griffith and the spiritual incarnation of Don Knotts, and MTV was holding commemorative concerts for him, even to the point of lowering themselves to playing the hit showtunes of Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire. Only Kids' WB remained stubborn, instead continuing to pump out that atrocious cartoon about mice trying to take over the world.

_[Legions of fans: If only...if only..._

Now that you've been given this graphic description of the rise in fame of Sherlock Brain, maybe you'll understand why the great detective was trying desperately to barricade his office door with a sixteen-ton weight.

"Push harder, Pinky!" Brain wheezed shrilly (if you can imagine such a thing), squeezing his eyes shut and throwing all three ounces of his body composition against the block of metal. "They've almost made it inside!"

"I'm—NNNNNGH—_pushing_, Brain! _Zort!_" Pinky gasped, his tiny chest heaving so rapidly that it looked like a malfunctioning air pump, then removed his fake mustache and mopped his forehead with it before clumsily sticking it back underneath his nose.

Voices were raised outside, and the wooden door warped as people attempted to force their way inside.

"Oh, Sherlock Brain, find my dog!"

"Sherlock Brain, I have a wart on my toe and want you to find out how I got it!"

"Mr. Detective, could you tell me where my car keys are?"

"YOU IN THERE, OPEN UP! I NEED FUNDING FOR MY SILLY WALK, AND I SHALL KICK THIS DOOR OPEN IN A VERY RIDICULOUS MANNER IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY!"

There was a small pause, and the chaos momentarily died down.

"Oh, you'll want the Ministry of Silly Walks then," a voice piped up from beyond the wall. "That's just across the street."

"Huh?" inquired the "Silly Walk" voice. "...Oh, all right. Sorry to be a bother."

After this incident, the chorus of voices raised again, everyone trying to knock down the door and get at the great detective. But Brain had fortuitously used the previous confusion to securely block the door with the sixteen-ton weight, and now leaned panting against it.

"They're—they're shut out, Pinky," Brain gasped, gulping air like a goldfish out of water and fanning himself with his deerstalker. "You may—you may cease pushing now."

"Just—_nnngh_—one more—_Troz_—PUSH!" wheezed Pinky with an obvious strain in his voice. Then he let out some sort of war cry and another scraping sound was heard. "It's a'right now, Brain, I've done it!"

Brain's nose twitched in sudden perplexity, and he rubbed his aching temples. "...Please revert to the events of the past for a parasecond. _What in the name of aerodynamic sheep are you talking about?_"

Opening his eyes, the great detective saw Pinky seated across the room from him, leaning against a wicker basket full of peaches that was now wedged against the corner of the room.

"...Pinky," Brain began slowly, quaking in annoyance and exhaustion, "..._why_ were you moving that casket of peaches when my situation _clearly_ necessitated assistance over here?"

Pinky inhaled massively, scurrying madly away from the basket and accidentally falling face-forwards just in front of Brain's feet. "Oh, Brain," he breathed, clutching at the hem of Brain's cape, "it was for OUR OWN GOOD!" Pinky glanced back over his shoulder fearfully, as if the peach basket was huddled in the shadows, waiting for him to let his guard down. "There's nothing more dangerous than _fresh fruit!_ 'Cept a giant hedgehog named Spiney Norman."

Within mere moments Brain's fist had made contact with Pinky's skull, and the shorter mouse felt reenergized immediately. "_Sie sind ja nicht einmal zum Mitskarren brauchbar_," he shot off for good measure, dusting off the sleeves of his suit. "While you were defending yourself against _fresh fruit_, **I** have shut out all those detestable admirers of mine." Brain snorted, scrabbling up the leg of his hardwood desk and seating himself with a sigh on the desktop. He stretched a little, then rubbed his spine with a hissing intake of breath, after which he collapsed onto his back again. "After all, I've routed out that hidden clan of transvestite lumberjacks, discovered the location of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, shut down that homicidal cult posing as 'The Dangerous Sports Club', deduced the true resting place of St. Brian and even found that missing piece of artwork inside that old woman's stomach. What more can they _want_ of me in a single morning?!"

"Protection against fresh fruit!"

_Whumf_.

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmaybe not. _Narf!_"

Brain rolled over onto his side, resting his large head on his palm, and resisted the urge to whack Pinky again. At least the presence of "groupies" meant that his plan was working. However, it _was_ rather irritating to have hordes of people follow you around everywhere in hopes of catching a glimpse of him or demanding some inane services.

He was starting to feel disconcertingly like Britney Spears.

Desperately trying to ignore a mental image of himself without hair, Brain suddenly became aware of a rattling noise coming from a nearby window, and he froze. "Pinky," he enunciated carefully, not moving an inch even as the rattling became louder, "Pinky, you _did_ lock the windows when I asked you to, did you not?"

Pinky stuck his tongue out the corner of his mouth and rubbed the top of his head, making a strange, high-pitched whining sound not unlike a mosquito's mating call. "Yes, Brain," he decided at length. "Yes, I did _not_."

Still Brain remained stationary, even though the rattling was quite clearly increasing in volume now. "And _why_ not, my ill-born companion?"

"It was the _raspberries_," Pinky hissed, glancing about as if afraid that they'd hear him. "They were lookin' _reeeeal_ menacin' right then, an'—"

The taller mouse didn't get to finish his thought, as at that moment there was a huge, resounding _CRASH_ and the windowpane shattered, making both mice scamper away as they attempted to avoid the shrapnel. There was a _thunk_ as some heavy footwear collided with the top of the desk, and a sort of whipping sound as a rope of conjoined bedsheets (which the mysterious assailant had obviously used to swing into the room) swayed slowly off in the corner. Sensing that the commotion was over, Pinky and Brain quietly peeped their heads up out of the depths of the peach basket—at which realization Pinky promptly fainted before being rudely awakened by his short companion.

Standing on the desk was a totally indescribable man who was simultaneously short, tall and medium-sized, wearing a full suit of armor and with a dead chicken slung over his shoulder. Removing said armor to reveal a white T-shirt and spandex bike shorts, the two mice could see that he had a _rather_ indescribable head and face, along with blackish-brownish-blondeish hair, and this indescribable face split into a grin as he spotted the pair in the basket of peaches.

"'Ello!" he cried in a decidedly British accent, spreading his arms wide and flapping them like wings as he jumped off the desk. "I'm Eric Michael John Graham Terry Terry."

"Ah...g-greetings," Brain returned hesitantly as he began to clamber out of the basket, but was shortly bowled over by Pinky. This impertinence quickly earned the taller mouse another whack on the head, after which Brain proceeded calmly out of the basket and cocked his head at the tall-short-medium-sized man. "That's...eh...quite an _impressive_ name, my friend. But what shall I call you?"

"Monty," the man answered without missing a beat, flashing an annoying smile at the Brain's obvious confusion. "It was my mother's name."

Pinky, obviously recovered by this time, drew in a massive gasp of breath and clapped both hands to his face. "YOUR MOTHER WAS MRS. NORA EDWARDS OF CHIPPING SODSBURY?!?!!?!?!"

" '_Dr. Pinkston'_..." began Brain ominously, but was unable to finish his thought as Monty interrupted.

"You knew 'er then?"

"_Natch!_" the mustachioed mouse ejaculated nasally, twirling in place a little. "Ohhhhh, she was LOVELY! An' she made SUCH a nice albatross!"

"Pinky, stop this tomfoolery at _once!_" Brain snapped, shooting a look at "Monty" as if too say _"You too."_ "Now." Planting his feet firmly apart, Brain glowered up at the human man. "What do you want? I warn you, I shall only pursue your case if it _interests_ me sufficiently."

Monty's reply was to nod vigorously, his eyes wide in a ridiculous fashion as he stuffed the dead chicken into his pants pocket. "Oh, oh, yes, it's _interestin'_ all right! I promise, it's interestin'! You won't be-_lieve_ how interestin' it is!"

Plopping himself on the ground with an air of finality, Brain dropped his chin into his hand and leaned his elbow on his knee, his face completely deadpan. "Try me."

There was a pause as the biggish-smallish-medium man sucked in a breath, running a hand through his indeterminately-colored hair. "Well, I _suppose_ to put it simply," he stated, his nostrils flaring slightly as he exhaled, "...it's MURDER."

Brain's head immediately shot up, his ears stiffening so severely that his hat was nearly crumpled between them. "_Murder?!_" he cried almost ecstatically, leaping to his feet as he thought of the prestige solving a _murder_ would bring him, then remembered that he was supposed to be sulking and coughed embarrassedly, half-turning away. "Ehhhh...I meant, 'oh, a murder.' "

Pinky cocked his head to the side, practically leaning his entire body in that direction as he did so. "Ya sure?" he inquired worriedly, lifting a hand timidly as though he was in school. "Maybe they're not dead, only _restin'_. Or pinin'!"

Within seconds, though, the taller mouse gave out a cry of pure terror and began to run for his life as he saw a _peach_ rolling rather quickly in his direction.

Nonchalantly descending once more from the large basket, Brain looked back up at Monty and attempted to suppress a triumphant smile in favor of a more professional frown. "Inform me of the details of the..._sordid affair_. Who was murdered? Where, and when?"

Monty seemed slightly at a loss, taking the chicken out of his pocket and toying with it a little. "I...I don't really..._know_ the where and when..." he gulped, staring at his hands, "I just...woke up and she was...she was _dead_." At last the man couldn't take it anymore and just collapsed, sobbing, into the human-sized chair behind the desk. "_I loved that parrot so much!_"

For a second, Brain attempted to articulate a counterthought as his neural receptors processed this new information, and then in a flurry of garbled sounds he mentally exploded. "Your _parrot?!?!_" he demanded as the author's artistic license momentarily placed him in a straitjacket. "Your PARROT. Parrot. The murder of a _parrot_. I am the single greatest detective that could ever exist in this or any possible multiple or parallel universes, I who could outmatch Tim the Enchanter for sheer mental prowess, I who know _better_ than to fear fresh fruit—AND YOU COME TO ME WITH A PARROT THAT IS _PASSED ON_, IS **NO MORE**, HAS CEASED TO BE, EXPIRED AND GONE TO MEET ITS MAKER?!?! A **LATE** PARROT, A _STIFF_, BEREFT OF LIFE, RESTING IN _PEACE_, PUSHING UP THE **DAISIES**, _RUNG_ DOWN THE CURTAIN, JOINED THE CHOIR INVISIBLE—AN **EX-**_**PARROT?!?!**_"

After calmly bearing out this tirade, and having snapped out of his grief with inhuman speed, Monty nodded emphatically. "Yes."

There was a moment's pause as Brain practiced his patented deep-breathing exercises, then grumblingly acquiesced. "All right, all right, _fine_, it's DEAD!" he allowed. "And you suspect—"

Here he stopped short, an expression of horror and revulsion spreading across his face. "Oh no. Nononono_no_. I shall _not_ say it! It would be utterly degrading."

Monty blinked, only half-comprehending whatever Brain was muttering about. "Well," he offered, "I _do_ suspect—"

"DON'T SAY IT."

Pinky's head popped up from the front of the room, where he had just chucked the peach to the expectant crowd outside the door, who were devouring it voraciously. "Ooooh!!_ Narf!_ I know!! I know, Brain!!!!" he squeaked, drawing himself up impressively. "He suspects—"

"**DON'T SAY IT!**"

At that moment, a stereotypically-attired British police constable poked his head through the broken window, inquired confusedly, "_Fowl_ play?!" and then exploded for no apparent reason.

Brain gritted his teeth, his fists clenching and unclenching at the horrible joke. He narrowed an eye at Monty, attempted to construct a sentence, then, failing that, he threw his hands into the air in a final fling of exasperation. "Oh, for all the—I'LL ASSIST YOU!"

"Oh, _jolly_ good then, old chap!"chirped Monty, then, scooping the two mice up into his hand, he swung back out the window on the bedsheet rope. However, the reader might be interested to know that in moments there was a sharp ripping sound, followed by a rather hard _thud_ and something suspiciously like the crunching of rodentlike bone structure. Rapture. (Or rather, _rupture_.)

Soon enough the trio was on the road in Monty's carriageish-car, the sounds of horse's hooves preceding them. _Clip clop_,_ clip clop_,_ clip clop_...

"PINKY! STOP PLAYING WITH THOSE COCONUTS!"

"_Fjord!_ Sorry, Brain."

The rest of the trip was silent, except of course for the constant vomitings and explosions of a strange man named Mr. Creosote, plus the occasional cry of "BRING OUT YOUR DEAD!" and the sounds of random passerby being turned into Scotsmen. But that's unimportant. Almost as unimportant as the sounds of Brain's strangled cry as, once they reached Monty's front door, the short mouse was catapulted over the building for not answering what his favorite color was. And the more excited cries of Pinky as he pretended to forget his name in order to be catapulted over the building as well. And don't forget the cracking noise as both mice were once again squished by Monty, who hadn't known the average flying speed of an African swallow.

Following this ordeal, the unlikely trio was forced to outrace a giant _blancmange_ from the galaxy of Andromeda in addition to a living house, the former of which was eaten whole by Pinky and the latter threatened with zoning regulations by the Brain. After spotting several larches from quite a long way away, they finally struggled back to Monty's house, which had since been guarded by the vigilance of a rather vicious rabbit, who nearly managed to dismember our heroes until the author mercifully led it over to a pasture of Mary Sues instead. (At last, a _useful_ form of hunting.) Following that, a rude Frenchman attempted to chuck a live cow at them from the top of the building, but the triad managed to hurry inside and lock the door, panting and wheezing.

"I _say_, ol' chap," Monty began quite calmly, inspecting his nails, "do you ever feel as if you're trapped in a neverending loop of vaguely related stolen gags only written to take up space?"

"Yep!" chirped Pinky, adjusting his mustache while humming complacently.

Brain merely gave them both an evil glare before looking at the interior of the house. It was nearly as bizarre as Monty's appearance, with an ant farm of colossal size in the corner, as well as several suits of armor stacked up in various corners and what looked like a caged tiger by the window. Lots of pictures that seemed to have been cut out of magazines were hanging on the walls, and as well there were many things scattered across the floor which I'd prefer not to describe in the interests of maintaining the current rating. And in the corner was a television, on top of which was seated a large-nosed penguin wearing a red bowtie. But he soon exploded after making a somewhat political comment.

"I hate cameos," Brain muttered, not even remembering (much like the author) that this was the same line he'd used in the _Animaniacs_ skit "Of Nice and Men". He promptly turned to Monty, who was thoroughly inspecting one of the unmentionable items on the floor. This sight made the tips of the stout mouse's ears redden, but he continued with his purpose nonetheless. "Where is the deceased parrot?"

It took a moment for Monty to realize that he'd been spoken to, and when he did he immediately straightened up and innocently hid the _thing_ behind his back. Pinky curiously craned his neck to see what it was, but Brain's foot on his tail abruptly halted this venture.

"Oh—oh yes, the PARROT!" Monty stammered, quickly hiding most of the embarrassing materials on the floor by shoving them under the television. Following this, he shot a quick glance at the two mice to ascertain whether or not they'd seen that, but regardless hurried off to his bedroom and returned, breathless, with a large golden cage in his hand and a blue, feathered _lump_ inside of that. He placed said cage on the ground and opened the door, allowing both Brain and Pinky to cautiously enter.

At the sight of the body, Pinky let out a high-pitched squeak and covered his face, shuddering slightly. Brain, however, wore a very entertaining expression of surprised contempt.

"For all of the innumerable Bruces and the bloodline of Genghis Khan!" he ejaculated in severe irritation, poking the parrot (which was substantially larger than him) in order to completely confirm the reason for his anger. Following this, he turned sharply on his heel to glare up at Monty. "This thing was _never_ animate! It's a STUFFED PARROT!"

"No it's not!" returned the human immediately, shaking his head as his eyes widened. "It's most certainly dead! It was sittin' on its perch last night!"

Brain's eye began to twitch as he quivered with rage. "That's because it was _nailed_ there!" He jabbed a forefinger at the corpse's feet. "You can still see the NAIL stuck in it!"

"Maybe that's how 'e died!" Pinky piped up. His response was a string of incoherent sounds from Brain, which finally terminated in a massively huffy exhale of breath.

"This mystery is _far_ too silly!" the shorter mouse declared, stomping out of the birdcage with Pinky scurrying out behind him.

"D'ya wanna leave it, Brain?" asked Pinky, perfectly on cue.

There was a pause as Brain looked scathingly at Pinky. "_What_ are you talking about?"

Pinky's ears drooped at the botched gag. "Nothin', Brain."

And with the duo's return to Bakery Street, Monty's return to some naughty pleasures and the stuffed parrot's return to the garbage can from whence it had come, the chapter ended...and so did part one of the story.

_Dun dun dun DUUUUUN_...

"Did you hear something, Pinky?"

"Ohhh...on'y the imagin'ry musical accompaniment to this fanfic, Brain."

"...I thoroughly dislike you."

"Thanks. _Zort!_"


	5. Chapter 5

"_Now, I know I'm new in town, and maybe they do things differently here, but I'm from New York, and we never greet new people by dressing up in our underwear and trying to kill them._

"_...Well, ALMOST never. ANYWAY..." —Amelia McBride [from the comic _Amelia Rules!_ by Jimmy Gownley, which you must read because it's AMAZING_

**Chapter 5**

The Beginning of Part Two (aka "I Can't Think Of A More Creative Title", aka "WHAT, It's Not OVER Yet?")

With a satisfied "YYYYYYYES!", Brain folded the newspaper and put it away. While this may seem like an inconsequential action, seeing as Brain was about two and a half inches tall and the newspaper had been meant for those at least a foot high (the number is low to appease midgets), it took about five minutes to scurry to the far end of the newspaper, lift the corner, bring it neatly to the opposite side, and carry the whole mess into the next room. So, when it was all done, it took about a paragraph to describe.

"This is _wonderful_, Pinky!" exclaimed the great detective, skidding to a halt in the hallway just outside his office. He was momentarily short of breath, as he'd been (uncharacteristically) running in excess glee, and so had to leave it at that until he could breathe better, fanning himself with his deerstalker to try and speed this up.

"Oh, I _know_, Brain!" Pinky replied, clapping his hands together as he began bouncing in his seat, pointing madly at the television screen. "Oprah's got Jerry Springer in a headlock, an' David Letterman's just startin' the count!"

As usual, Brain didn't even _want_ to know what Pinky was on about this time. "Were someone to attempt fathoming the black hole that is your _mind_, they would inexorably fall in and never again be sighted on this mortal plane," stated the shorter mouse caustically, though his good mood was not _entirely_ dampened. Stepping sharply on the channel button, the screen jumped slightly as it changed from the Battle of the Network Stars to a local news station.

"—_and that's all we have to say about the dangers of fanfiction!"_ smirked Ted Floppel, his hair shifting slightly to the side as he shuffled his papers. _"However, in other news, who's HOT, HOT HOT?"_

"_Orlando Bloom!"_ squealed a bunch of girls from offscreen. Ted blinked, then grinned emotionlessly.

"_Har de har har,"_ he returned dully. _"We all saw THAT one coming, didn't we? No, what I mean is WHO'S __**HOT?**__"_

"_**ORLANDO BLOOM!!!!!**__"_

Ted Floppel groaned rather loudly, then stood up sharply and banged his fist on the desk. _"I mean who's HOT as in __**WHO'S GETTING IN THE NEWS A LOT AND SEEMS TO BE REALLY IMPORTANT EVEN THOUGH THEY MIGHT NOT BE!**__"_

There was a pause and muted whisperings as the offscreen girls apparently discussed this, then they chorused in falsetto, _"PARIS HILTON!"_

"_**SHERLOCK BRAIN!!!!**__"_ Ted sobbed, sinking into his swivel chair and burying his face in his hands. _"It's SHERLOCK BRAIN, you MINDLESS PRODUCTS OF SOCIETY! Oh go-o-odddd..."_

At last it was apparent that Ted could no longer go on, so a very tall man walked into the frame and placed his hand comfortingly on the newscaster's shoulder, leading the blubbering man off into a corner where he could be very quietly and humanely put out of his misery. Just in time to cover up the gunshot, a young African-American girl with a long black ponytail shuffled onto the set, smiling pleasantly at the screen. _"Sorry about that,"_ she apologized, picking up the stack of paper herself and patently ignoring it as she began to talk. _"But what a rising star Sherlock Brain __**is!**__ The mysterious and brilliant detective who just appeared out of the blue nearly two months ago has been causing a global sensation, what with his ease in solving cases AND his extraordinarily small stature! I mean, is he a pygmy, or just REALLY short?"_

This part naturally irritated the Brain, and he gritted his teeth. "It just so happens that two inches is a _fine_ height for a mouse my age," he grumbled. "_Et allez aprendre la politesse, mademoiselle._"

Pinky giggled hesitantly, sticking out his tongue. "And _narf_ to her too!...I suppose..."

Onscreen, the reporter girl flipped her ponytail as she laughed. _"And there are even guesses that—and LISTEN to THIS—Sherlock Brain is __**not**__ a man at all, but a superintelligent laboratory mouse with a mouse sidekick! Isn't that just RIDICULOUS? They're not animals—they're wearing __**clothes!**__"_

The shot switched to one of a small, confused-looking anthropomorphic green duck wearing a white tank top when, without warning, a giant hand reached into the frame and quickly yanked off his singular article of clothing. The duck immediately turned red and clapped on a barrel, chuckling embarrassedly as he sidled offscreen.

Ignoring the previous occurrence, the screen changed to show various publicity photos of Sherlock Brain, a goodly number of them posed and very few of them candid, as the **short** mouse despised cameras. The young reporter's voice narrated the montage. _"In his brief career, this benevolent and noble d_

(In the middle of writing this, the author was suddenly overcome with a fit of violent and uncontrollable laughter, and was unable to write for at least half an hour. Fortunately for the story and our favorite megalomaniac's ego, the author was soon under control and the story progressed once more.)

"_In his brief career, this benevolent and noble detective has changed the lives of many, reuniting long-lost lovers with their pets and managing to lock up horrible criminals. Of course, you DO remember Tomasso the Sandwich-nabber, Scummy Zack, Eric the Really Nasty __**and**__ Rob Paulsen. And don't forget about all those mimes."_

The photo montage ended with a picture of Sherlock Brain standing smugly on top of a pile of tightly bound and gagged mimes, a sight which brought happiness to _both_ mice watching the program, as well as many _Animaniacs_ characters/fans.

The screen then switched back to the reporter girl, who was in the act of pummeling a mime herself before realizing that she was on-camera and sheepishly stuffing him under her desk. _"A-anyway,"_ she resumed, hastily reorganizing her papers again, _"if Sherlock Brain solves even just one more colossal case, he'll be heralded as the greatest detective of all time!"_

This was all that Brain needed to hear, and he clicked the TV off again. "Do you know what this _means_, Pinky?"

For a second Pinky simply remained staring blankly at the TV set, then he cocked his head to the side with a "_Troz!_". "Nope, no I _don't_, Brain," replied the taller mouse firmly, shaking his head as his tongue flopped out again. "I was just thinkin' about whackin' some mimes of my _own_ with an olive loaf."

Brain whacked Pinky in the back of the head, right between the ears. "Don't _say_ that!" he hissed. "Mr. Breathed might be _reading_ thi—" However, the detective caught himself once more, his face contorting into an irritated grimace. "I mean, he _couldn't_ be reading this, as this is most certainly not a fanfiction of any denomination...nor do I even know who 'Mr. Breathed' is, come to ponder upon it." Finished with his small rant, Brain resumed, "Pinky, this means that if I solve merely one more case, then I'll be _ruler of the world!_"

Pinky yawned. "Oh, that's nice, Brain. Hmmmmm..._olive loaf_..."

This time it was a boot to the head rather than anything less drastic, following which Brain pulled Pinky onto his feet, using the taller mouse's ears for handles. "Now, if only I were offered another case..." Brain ruminated before being abruptly cut off by the ringing of a telephone sitting on the desk.

"OOOH! _Poit!_" ejaculated Pinky, straightening and pointing at the phone. "It's a plot contrivance, Brain!"

Ignoring his companion, Brain grabbed a ruler from the edge of the desk and used it like a crowbar to flip the receiver off the dock, scampering over to the mouthpiece before any time lag could be noticed on the other end of the call. "This is the office of detective Sherlock Brain of Bakery Street," he recited breathlessly. "In what way do you require assistance?"

"_Whut?"_ asked a voice not unlike Gomer Pyle's. _"Well, shewt me down! Ah thought Ah wuz callin' the plumbers! Y'see, Ah got this gosh-dern __**leak**__—"_

Within two seconds the phone was back on the hook, Brain quivering with disgust at the pointlessness of it all. So, when the phone rang again, the stout mouse answered with a sharp "CAN YOU NOT GRUDGE ME SOME MEAGER RESPITE?!?!!?"

There was a pause, then a British-accented voice inquired politely, _"Pardon me. I assumed that this was the offices of Sir Sherlock Brain?"_

Seeing as the great detective was temporarily stunned, Pinky scurried up to the receiver. "No, of _course_ not!" he chirruped, leaning on his umbrella. "This's the office of _Sherlock_ Brain!" Then the taller mouse paused. "Eurhhh...hold on." Pinky placed his left foot on the mouthpiece as if to muffle sound, then leaned back and poked Brain. "Brain, is your first name 'Sir'?"

This snapped Brain out of it. "_Depart_, you porridge-minded buffoon!" he snapped, shoving Pinky aside and clutching at the receiver. "Y-yes, this is Sherlock Brain!" He narrowed his eyes at Pinky, who waved cheerfully at him from the side. "I apologize for the intelligence of my assistant. He was used as a _basketball_ in his youth."

"I REMEMBER THAT! WHEEEEEHAHAHA_FJORD!_"

_SLAM_.

"I apologize for the interruption," Brain enunciated smoothly, dusting off his palms and leaning eagerly into the mouthpiece. "What distress necessitated this contact?"

There was another pause, as though the speaker were attempting to orchestrate a flawless sentence. _"It's a matter which demands the utmost secrecy. I shall trust to your discretion."_

Brain nodded affirmatively, his pulse racing. "Alleviate your anxiety, for you depend upon the tact of the correct individual."

Pinky chuckled lightly, covering his mouth to try and stifle the noise. "Don't you _love_ listenin' to conversations with big words in 'em?" he asked the audience, seeing as he had no one else to talk to. "It's like watchin' a foreign film."

"Pinky, _shush!_" Brain lifted the receiver up as much as possible so he could better hear what was being said.

"_The matter is thus,"_ continued the voice, now quivering a little. _"Some very important and expensive equipment was stolen from our college, Amblin University—some pieces worth even up to a few thousand dollars _each_. The police are baffled, and we are unable to call in any higher authorities or risk alerting the media, which might cause the thief to destroy the equipment. And it's vital that we retrieve __**all**__ of it."_

Brain's tail began to vibrate again with his growing intrigue, and even Pinky was keeping quiet and listening with bated breath. "Are—are there," stammered Brain, "are there any leads?"

"_Only one: a note left at the university. Not one person even noticed it until after the police had left."_

"And what does it say?"

There was a sound as of someone unfolding a piece of paper, and then the British voice continued. _" 'There you go, High-and-Mighty: this is my revenge. Signed...__**Professor**__.' "_

This was rather too much excitement for Pinky to handle, and he promptly fainted. Brain cast a sidelong glance at him, stated into the receiver "I shall arrive shortly" and used the ruler to put the phone back on the hook. Then, after Sherlock Brain had shaken his Dr. Pinkston roughly awake, both mice clambered down the legs of the desk and rushed out of the office via the mail slot, hailing a taxi to take them to Amblin University.

Within half an hour, Pinky and Brain were standing outside the university. Not sparing a minute, Brain clapped his deerstalker to his head and jogged to the front door, Pinky lolloping excitedly behind him and trying to keep both his mustache and bowler from flying off. Standing in front of the door of the school was a tall man, thin and with sharp features, slightly aged but in impeccable condition. He was dressed in a long white lab coat and was clearly waiting for them.

"How do you do, Sir Sherlock," stated the man matter-of-factly in the same unmistakable voice they'd heard on the phone, extending his hand and kneeling down to offer it to the Brain, who grasped as much of it as he could and shook perfunctorily. The man then stood back up, smoothing the crinkles out of his coat as he did so. "I am Arnold Ronin Foyle, the headmaster of this university. It was I who called you."

"That I knew the moment I descried you here," Brain returned, drawing himself up proudly. "Your features bely the analytical nature of your mind, and your height is such that your vocal chords could produce a similar sound to that which I heard on the phone. As well, the caller referred to Amblin as 'our university', implying that he was a member of the staff or the _head_—the latter more likely because of the high level of secrecy involved—and because of that same level of secrecy, it would only compute that the caller (the headmaster) would be the individual to greet us upon our arrival."

Foyle smiled thinly, giving the impression that he was impressed but would prefer not to display as much emotion. "I see that your reputation does not exaggerate the facts." He bowed his head slightly, then straightened and looked off into the distance, tapping his foot lightly. Pinky removed his bowler and confusedly tousled the fur beneath it before deciding to pass the time inspecting his earwax. Brain, however equally confused he was, was slightly less patient.

"Well?" he persisted, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. "May I see the scene of the crime?"

If he was surprised by this request, Foyle didn't show it. Instead, he merely stated, "First we must wait for the others."

Brain blinked. "Others? What—"

He was cut off by the squealing of tires, and a ridiculously long black limousine pulled up in front of the door. A timid-looking anthropomorphic pig wearing nothing but a blue jacket and a bowtie then clambered out of the driver's seat, hurrying over and opening the side door of the car. Out of this stepped a slightly taller black toon duck wearing a long trenchcoat and a fedora, glancing disdainfully down his long orange bill at the university.

"_Th_so this_th_ is_th_ the pla_th_ce?" he scoffed lispingly, brushing a large cloud of dust off his coatsleeve and onto the pig. "Does_th_n't _th_seem like an exc_th_iting pla_th_ce for a crime. Maybe I can _th_spic_th_e it up for my memoir_th_s."

"Who—" Brain began again, his pink eyes wide and bewildered.

However, at that moment a hot air balloon suddenly dropped like a stone out of the sky, landing on top of the limousine with an expensive-sounding _crunch_, the noise of which caused the pig to start whimpering about "down payments". Out of the basket popped three animal-like creatures with black fur (though with white masklike markings about their faces), floppy ears and tails. Two were male and one female, the girl being the smallest. "PEP TALK!" the tallest boy shouted, and the three toons huddled together and exchanged whispered conversation. Then, after a quick cheer, the three dove deeper into the basket and then jumped fully out of it, landing just in front of Pinky, Brain, the pig, the duck and Foyle. The tall boy creature was now wearing a long brown coat with matching slacks and bowler hat, a monocle perched before his right eye. The shorter boy had on a light blue collared shirt and pants with a red cap, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and the girl was wearing a small white coat with a pink skirt underneath and a flower scrunchie around her ears.

"AH!" the monocle'd (Isn't language the best thing to muck with?) character cried, grasping Foyle by the hand and flexing his eyebrows. "You must be professor Wagstaff of Huxley University! Did you ever find those football players?"

At last Brain found an opening in the conversation, and whirled on Foyle. "Mr. Foyle, who _are_ these people?"

Foyle looked down at him inquisitively for a moment, then he nodded slightly. "I apologize if I did not make it quite clear." He swept a hand around to indicate the duck and tall boy animal. "These two are Duck Twacy and Hercule Yakko. Over there are Wakko and Dot, Hercule Yakko's assistants. You shall be working alongside them."

"You betcher _life_, bub!" spat Duck Twacy, rubbing his hands together as dollar signs erupted about his head. "Ju_th_st think of all the TV deal_th_s I'll get on_th_ce I _th_solve this_th_ ca_th_se!"

Pinky blinked, cocking his head to the side as he shuffled a little further behind the Brain. "Why do we have to think of 'em?" He brightened. "'Re there doughnuts involved? Ooh, I _love_ doughnuts, they're so SQUISHY and—"

"It's got biggest doughnut of 'em all," interjected Hercule Yakko in a somewhat nasally voice as a wide grin spread across his face. He sucked in a deep breath, puffed out his chest and hooked his thumbs in the lapels of his coat.

"Whichever one of us solves this case," he concluded once he was sure that the mice's full attention was upon him, "will be known as _the greatest detective in the world_."


	6. Chapter 6

"_It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt." —Samuel Langhorn Clemens, better known as Mark Twain_

**Chapter 6**

The Stolen Things (aka "The Author's Having Trouble With Language Today")

There was a moment when Brain didn't know exactly what to say, and so instead settled for silent confused fuming. He hadn't expected any _competition_ in his race for global conquest. But he assured himself that, with his immensely superior intellect, he would easily be able to solve the mystery before the peanut gallery had even spotted the first clue.

"Hey look, a clue!"

Brain jumped nearly half a foot in the air as the blue-shirted boy animal, Wakko, dove for a clump of bush just by the door, rooting furiously through the brambles. This was too much—Brain opened his mouth to pass a baffledly scathing remark when Pinky spoke up first.

"A CLUE!!!" gasped the tiny mouse, scurrying over to Wakko's side and trying desperately to peep over the taller creature's shoulder. "Oh, Sherlock Brain, 'e's found a CLUE! I'in't this so _excitin'?!!?_"

"_Et tu, Brute?_" grumbled Brain, crossing his arms irritably. He remained in that position for about thirty seconds before he quickly tired of the entire proceeding, stalking over to Wakko and placing both hands on his hips. "WELL? What sort of _clue_ have you _found?_"

Without speaking, Wakko reached once more into the bush and pulled out—a moldy old sandwich.

"AHA!!" Hercule Yakko cried, marching up and plucking the crumbly sandwich out of his brother's hands. "This conclusive piece of evidence reveals that THE THIEF LIKED LIMBURGER!"

"EWWW!" gagged Dot, the female animal. "DEEEEEEEs_gusting!_"

Hercule Yakko then pulled a large laminating machine out of his coat pocket and put the sandwich through, essentially preserving it for fingerprinting. While Duck Twacy viewed this process with disdain, Foyle with slight amusement and Brain with outright disgust, there were others more positively affected.

"_Troz!_" Pinky ejaculated, hopping slightly up and down. "Ooooh, the suspense is pickin' up ALREADY! The _first_ CLUE!! Oh, c'mon, Sherlock Brain, _you_ find somethin'!"

Brain's left eye twitched involuntarily, and he whapped Pinky with his deerstalker again. Following that, he turned to Foyle, crossing his arms. "Perhaps if I was to be escorted to the site of the theft, that might be _arranged_."

"Yes, yes, the _theft_," Foyle acknowledged, inclining his head a little and giving a wry smile. "Do come this way, I _implore_ you."

The pig left with intent to call a tow truck as they followed the tall man into the building, Pinky and Brain practically jogging to keep up. "Ooooh, I dunno if he should _implore_ us yet, Sherlock Brain," Pinky informed his companion skeptically. "I mean, before _dessert?_"

Brain gave the taller mouse a withering look, then picked up speed and jogged as far ahead of him as possible.

It took only a matter of minutes to cross through the nearly-empty front lobby and into the hallway of the Technological division, at which point Foyle led the group through a complex series of passages, stopping just in front of a large pair of double doors. While Hercule Yakko and his assistants—the ones closest behind the headmaster—halted on the same beat as Foyle, Duck Twacy continued walking until he'd slammed into Hercule Yakko and fallen over backwards.

Landing directly on top of Pinky and the Brain, of course.

"This is the room wherein our most important mechanical apparati are stored," Foyle explained as he placed his palm on a gray square on the doorframe, waiting calmly as a green laser scanned the length of his hand. Once the device was satisfied with the results, a keyboard unfolded from the opposite wall, which Foyle strode over to and rapidly typed in a lengthy piece of code, not even blinking once as he did so. After that was a quick retina scan of the headmaster, followed by a double-check of his hat size.

Duck Twacy jumped up and whistled appreciatively, his tongue shooting half-out of his mouth with the _cha-CHING!_ of a cash register. "_Th_ssssssay, if that's_th_ ju_th_st the _th_security, imagine what'_th_s actually IN there!"

Pinky helped peel his shorter companion off the floor, brushing Brain down as the detective himself stiffly adjusted his collar. "I've invented _better_," Brain commented casually, though clearly he, too, was impressed.

The full run of data having been deemed valid, the double doors opened outward, seeming to spill forth a huge ray of light like in a corny movie. Hercule Yakko, noting this, leaned his face into his palm and cracked an exasperating grin, squinting one eye jauntily.

"Aaaaaaaaah...I _think_ y'might need to call the electrician around again," he remarked impishly. "He switched the 40-watt bulbs with 4000-watts again."

"How _tacky_," Dot added.

Foyle strode calmly across the threshold and turned back to them before opening his mouth to speak. However, Duck Twacy cut him off.

"_TH_STEP A_TH_SIDE!" cried the waterfowl, neatly bowling over the rest of the detectives. "VERY EX_TH_PEN_TH_SIVE AND HIGHLY-REPUTABLE ITEMS_TH_ AHEAD! I'M _**TH**_**SO** THE_**EEEEEEGHAGHAGAHRRROOOGUHMAHG**__—_"

As can be discerned if the reader has a very vivid imagination, as soon as Twacy tried to enter the room he was pulverized by a massive electric shock, making him jitter in midair as his skeleton lit up brightly even through his dark feathers. Hercule Yakko and his assistants immediately snapped into action, whipping out three sticks with marshmallows and sausages stuck on the ends and roasting them over the fire. Brain cringed slightly, though he was secretly pleased at this new development, and Pinky's ears drooped as he lamented the fact that _he_ hadn't stepped over the threshold first.

After quite a bit more feather-roasting, Duck Twacy suddenly dropped, smoking and ashen, back to the floor, where he lay twitching for some moments. The brilliant light coating the entrance vanished, and Foyle's head appeared around the corner of the doorframe with his customary stoic expression, though a hint of amusement and slight impatience could be detected about his brow. (Well, maybe only if you had the astute observatory powers of Sherlock Brain, but oh well.)

"I was about to inform you about the _additional_ security precautions," the headmaster explained simply as he waved them inside. Hercule Yakko and company bounded inside with Pinky, but Brain was more hesitant to follow. However, he _did_ enjoy trodding on Duck Twacy's head before the irritated mallard managed to push himself to his knees and crawl into the room, where Foyle continued his debriefing. "The door is designed so that only the scientists acceptable to the identification system may pass through. Any guests accompanying said scientists need to have their vital statistics entered into the computers on _this_ side before they may enter."

"Reasonably clever," Brain muttered, rubbing his chin and looking up the vast distance to Foyle's face. His eyes were flashing as he thought of how a similar system could work to his advantage. "So if, theoretically, a scientist were to be captured and _forced_ to open the door, he could still prevent his captors from passing inside the room."

"Indeed," Foyle agreed, a corner of his mouth twitching into a minuscule smile. "However, it would not guard against one of the scientists _themselves_ having ill goals in mind and securing one of the pieces of advanced machinery without arousing suspicion. Which, of course, is the impediment to our investigation." He pulled a small, crumpled sheet of paper out of his chest pocket, showing it to the detectives—the letter left behind at the scene of the crime. Unfortunately it had been typed and printed on a computer, making handwriting recognition impossible. "Based on the signature to the taunting letter, the thief is a teacher at this very institute. And while we thoroughly screen all professors before their data is entered into the identification systems guarding the door, it appears that, to use the vernacular, a 'bad apple has slipped into the bunch'."

"Yeah yeah yeah, _apples_th. WHATEVER!" Duck Twacy was obviously still irritated at his electrocution, crossing his arms and reverting into a darker mood than he'd been using before. "BUT WHERE'_TH_S THE _TH_STUFF?!?!!?"

It was at this point that Brain's attention was diverted to the interior of the room they were in. The room—or, as could plainly be seen, the _laboratory_—was very large and mostly white, with an immaculately tiled floor set up in measurements apparently taken from the Fibonacci sequence, as each alternating section of black and white was noticeably larger than the last. There were many futuristic-looking white tables arranged at specific angles around the space, but every single one was conspicuously bare.

"Somebody ATE IT ALL!" cried Wakko decisively, then shrunk a little as the gaze of everyone in the room was turned towards him. "Ummmmm...a dinosaur, maybe?"

"Or _you_," Dot put in disdainfully.

While Brain made some more grumbling noises in his throat, Pinky was fanning himself with his bowler hat and leaning on his umbrella like it was a cane. "Ohhhhhh, I don't think I c'n take much more of this, Sherlock Brain," he panted, tongue creeping out over the edge of his lip again. "I mean, TWO CLUES?!?! _Already?_"

Brain glanced sharply at the taller mouse in order to reprimand him, but suddenly turned away again with a muffled, snorting chuckle, which he tried to conceal by placing his hands over his mouth. He tried to turn back towards the monstrously confuzzled Pinky, but couldn't avoid shaking hysterically with silent laughter.

"Wha' is it, Brain?" inquired Pinky, leaning over his companion with a concerned expression. Then he exhaled a massive gasp and clapped both hands to the side of his face. "OH MY GOSH!! _'E'S HAVIN' AN EPI__**LAUGH**__TIC FIT!_"

At last Brain got himself under a reasonable amount of control and straightened up, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of Pinky's still-uncovered head. "H-_hat hair_," he choked, then coughed and pretended to adjust the collar of his suit.

Hercule Yakko smirked down at him as Pinky hurriedly replaced his bowler. "So you're the mature one of the duo, heh?"

Brain shot him an evil glare. Obviously his mood had dissipated.

Foyle audibly cleared his throat, successfully getting the attention of everyone in the room. "The reason there is nothing in this room, Mr. Twacy," he explained, taking several long strides towards a nearly spherical table by the blank wall at the far end of the room, "is because this is the room that was _burglarized_, as the common man so quaintly puts it." He paused at the bowl-like table, nearly causing another pile-up of the spectators following him, and reached inside the depression in the tabletop. After a moment he removed his hand and stepped backwards, at which point a holographic display leapt out of the depths of the table. (This startled Wakko, who reflexively whipped out a mallet and was about to smash the projector before Hercule Yakko stopped him.)

"These," announced Foyle, striding in front of the display and gesturing towards it, "are the schematics for the stolen technological devices that were in this room. They, at least, were not harmed."

Even before Foyle had started to speak, Brain had somehow scurried up the convex surface of the white table and was studying the plans at close range, his eyes wide in intense concentration and wonder. "_Remarkable_," he breathed, reverentially removing his deerstalker as he turned to Foyle. "A molecular enhancer of _this_ caliber? With the technology _you_ had available? If only **I** had invented—" Suddenly he caught himself, though, and reverted to his normal, gruff demeanor. "I mean, I _have_ invented quite more..._impressive_...devices than this..."

"Have it as you wish, Sir Sherlock Brain," returned Foyle, that same enigmatic, partially-amused smile on his face. "However, I'm afraid I must argue in favor of our molecular enhancer, which has been the life's work of our top scientists, myself included, for well upon twenty years. Not only does it retain the ability to identify and artificially replicate the base components of any known form of matter, it can also _alter_ said molecules; for example, inserting an additional protein here or there, or even _expanding_ the target mass by reproducing all of the components at a molecular level." For the first time since he'd appeared in the story, Foyle displayed some emotion in the form of a small sigh. "If only we'd had the chance to test it before it was stolen...we'd just made a major breakthrough with it."

He continued on, gesturing to other, cryptic sections of the hologram. "This here was a schematic for a device designed by one of our most exceptional instructors, Professor Columbus, a perfectly brilliant but occasionally absentminded man. It was meant to be the perfect internal combustion engine, and its inception came about, I believe, because the professor couldn't afford to pay gas for or have repairs done on his horribly ancient car...To be precise, the engine was designed with some form of perpetual energy generator as the source of power, and would allow the axles to move as smoothly as possible by utilizing a more efficient piston. To be frank, Columbus hasn't yet worked out how to _create_ any sort of perpetual energy generator, though he had already done quite a bit of work on the pistons before the event of last night.

"The final of the three devices stolen was a revolutionary new form of laser generator that I myself designed several years ago, and have been refining for only the past six months. Using multiple mirrors at very precisely calculated angles, the infrared light beams emitted by the atoms used would be focused to an even more precise point than is normal, thereby increasing the speed and intensity of the emission. Even more recently my research has been leading me to the theory of an atomic _regulator_, which could plausibly cause the atoms to vibrate at another meticulously-calculated frequency, thereby _doubly_ increasing its power and efficiency. This component I had only just developed a prototype for the day before yesterday; it, too, would have been tested today."

There was a moment's pause.

"They're not very pretty," Dot remarked. This prompted her to whip out a marker, clamber onto the table (once again squishing Brain in the process) and start doodling excitedly on the hologram.

It took another moment before they were able to remove Dot from the table and the Brain from the sole of her furry foot, but once he'd sufficiently subjected all present (excepting Foyle) to extensive verbal abuse, the rodent detective fell back to pondering the situation. "Quite singular..." he muttered, rubbing his chin so forcefully that he could have made a dent in it. "_All_ of the stolen items were either unfinished or untested..."

"HA! IT'S _**TH**_**SIMPLE!**" ejected Duck Twacy, fed up with the mouse's superior attitude and hungering for some glory-time himself. Bent nearly double (à la Groucho Marx), he began to pace up and down the in front of the hologram generator. "A _thhhhhhhhhhhh_scienti_th_st wants_th_ to finish one of his_th_ projects_th_ in deepes_th_t, darkes_th_t night. _Th_so he _th_sneaks_th_ into the _th_sssecret la-bor-a-bor-a-tory, an' goes_th_ to it." Duck Twacy swung around very suddenly, striking an impressive pose. "BUT HE REALIZ_TH_ES_TH_ HE'S_TH_ GOT A PERRRRRFECT OPPORTU-NICK-Y TO DO _TH_SOME **REAL** DAMAGE! _TH_SO HE _TH_STEALS_TH_ THE OTHER PROFESS_THHHHH_ORS'_TH_ INVENTIONS_TH_ AND VAMOO_TH_SES_TH_, KNOWIN' HE CAN MAKE THE NEC_THHH_ESS_TH_ARY REPAIRS_THHHHHH_!"

Hercule Yakko leaned casually on the mallard's elbow and looked innocently up into his face. "I see those speech therapy lessons are really payin' off."

Duck Twacy puffed his chest out proudly. "I don't TAKE _thhhhhh_speech therapy."

"Difficult to comprehend, what with your fluent use of the language," Brain shot off in a rare attempt at humor.

He failed miserably.

While all of this had been going on, Pinky had been staring hypnotically at the holograms, tongue sticking out and tail swishing gently from side to side. The little mouse cocked his head, blinking his large, blue eyes, and, still without once tearing his gaze from the plans, spoke.

"Brain—eh, _Sherlock_ Brain...I've seen these thingamajigs _before_."

This stopped everyone dead in their tracks, and everyone slowly turned to look at Pinky. Even Hercule Yakko and Duck Twacy had dropped their cocky airs to favor the mouse with bewilderment. Only Foyle remained impassive, his hands in the pockets of his lab coat and his emotionless gaze fixed upon Pinky.

"Where have you seen them, Dr. Pinkston?" Brain inquired quietly, and stepped forwards, his voice trembling slightly with his suppressed eagerness.

Pinky screwed up his face, looking like he was halfway between trying to remember something important and being horrifically constipated. "It was—" he stammered, both pink hands gripping the sides of his skull. "It was—it was—" Pinky's tail immediately snapped up, cracking the air like a whip as his eyes flew open in triumph. "ON THE SCI-FI CHANNEL!"

After a short pause in which this terribly anticlimactic proclamation was mentally digested by all present, the rest of the group made the unanimous decision to ignore him. Brain, however, put in _extra_ effort on this point.

"Which of your professors had access to this laboratory?" demanded the Brain, changing his position so that he was in no way looking in Pinky's direction. "I must interrogate _everyone_ whose data was acceptable to your doorway security apparatus!"

No sooner had Foyle opened his mouth to respond, however, than an irate Twacy stomped towards the Brain, looming ominously over him with an angrily furrowed brow and his bill half-turned up. "Whaddaya mean, _you?!_" he spat, pointing an accusatory finger at the diminutive mouse. "We're _all_ in this_th_, chump! **WE'RE** GONNA IN-TERRRRRR-O-GATE EVERYONE! _WE!!!_"

Wakko poked his head into the conversation, looking up at Duck Twacy with a mischievous grin that almost entirely dispelled the innocent look he was trying to affect. "_Who's_ gonna interrogate everyone?"

"**WE** ARE!!!" repeated Duck Twacy, striking another mock-impressive pose. "WE! _WE!!!!!_"

At this, the species-unidentifiable boy stifled a large giggle and turned to Dot and Hercule Yakko, pointing up at Duck Twacy as he removed his hand from his mouth. "_'E_ said—"

Brain coughed ridiculously loudly, shooting a glare at Wakko. "I thoroughly dislike that genre of humor," he muttered as explanation, then turned back to Foyle once more. "That being enunciated, might we...?"

The headmaster nodded sharply, instantly comprehending the mouse's request. "Just this way, gentlemen," proclaimed Foyle, gesturing for them. "Anticipating a similar situation, I've already assembled all of the professors who have access to this room. Now, if you'll be so kind as to follow me..."


	7. Chapter 7

"_Whenever you get in trouble, get a lawyer. Then you're in more trouble, but at least you've got a lawyer." —Chico Marx_

**Chapter 7**

Intrigue (aka "Too Bad The Chapter's Not As Short As The Title")

The group of detectives (and detective's assistants) hesitantly began to trail after Foyle. That is, until Sherlock Brain and Duck Twacy halted right in their tracks, just realizing in which direction the headmaster was walking.

"What're you tryin' ta' _pull?!?_" demanded Twacy.

"What is the meaning of this?" the Brain inquired in the same instant.

Foyle turned placidly around and gave a questioning look to both detectives. Hercule Yakko, Wakko, Dot and Pinky also looked towards their companions, though with differing expressions of surprise and amused expectance. "Yes?" Foyle prompted.

Brain was saved from answering by a timely interruption courtesy of Duck Twacy, a fact that he would relish for many months afterwards. "Whaddaya mean, YES_thhhhhh?!?_" the mallard squawked indignantly, punching a forefinger in the direction they'd been walking. "WE'RE WALKIN' TOWARDS_TH_ A BLANK WALL!!!!"

Foyle lightly raised both eyebrows, then calmly strode the rest of the way towards the wall at the end of the lab and pressed two fingers against a round, gray patch affixed to it. A section of the wall immediately slid to the left, revealing a small, similarly-furnished but infinitely more casual room beyond it.

Twacy's jaw hit the floor. "I—but—he—nyeh—fwehtz—WAITAMINNIT!!" His head whipped around for the reassurance of an equally-mortified Brain standing at his ankle, but the diminutive mouse had already assimilated himself into the crowd entering the next room, leaving all of the humiliation for the duck.

The adjoining room contained many chairs of the same style as the hologram table, plasticine, white, bowl-shaped pieces with the cavity filled with thick blue plush. The floor was densely carpeted with what seemed to be the same material as the upholstery, which caused the unfortunate Pinky and Brain to sink waist-deep into the floor before a smug Hercule Yakko dug them out and placed them on an ivory-colored coffee table. The walls of the room were seemingly concave, giving the occupant the feeling that they were inside a giant sphere.

However, I'm sure that the readers will be slightly more interested in the three men waiting calmly inside.

Seated on the far left of the trio was a distinguished, bored-looking man who slumped idly in his seat and tapped the sides of it with his long fingers. He wore a long, immaculately-kept white lab coat similar to Foyle's, though gray dress pants and brown Oxford shoes were visible due to his crossed legs. He had a finely-hewn face with well-groomed dark hair, and wore a nametag reading "Prof. Milo Phance".

In the middle was a considerably younger man, perhaps in his twenties, with square-lensed glasses and face buried in an absurdly thick book titled _The Scientific Mind on Science Fiction and Why _Star Wars_ Could Never Work_. His black hair was messy and his lab coat wrinkled, becoming even more so as he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. As the doors opened, he momentarily looked up from his reading, revealing a nametag on his lapel declaring him to be "Prof. Ellery Cream".

The last man, situated casually in his own chair to the far right of the others, was even more rumpled than Professor Cream, his coat stained a grubby gray from the hems up and pieces of his sleeves caked with some kind of oil. He ran a tanned hand through his bush of tangled dark hair, squinting slightly at Foyle. His right eye seemed slightly unfocused, and a cigar hung limply between his fingers. The ink on part of his nametag was smeared beyond recognition, but the last word of "Columbus" was legible if one squinted.

"Gentlemen," Foyle greeted cordially as he entered the room, and the three men stood and bowed. The headmaster swept a hand across the line of visitors, who each either nodded politely (Brain and Hercule Yakko, though the latter still with his superior smirk), stood there sulkily (Duck Twacy), or began waving enthusiastically (Pinky, Wakko and Dot). "These are the famous detectives Hercule Yakko, Duck Twacy and Sherlock Brain, along with their assistants Wakko, Dot and Dr. Pinkston. They are here to ameliorate the dilemma of the recent theft." This introduction having been made, Foyle turned to face his guests, and gestured to each seated professor in turn. "Phance, Cream and Columbus. Phance and Cream have been my collaborators in regards to the molecular enhancer, and Columbus is the man who has been working on the advanced internal combustion engine."

Phance and Cream tipped their heads at the group, Phance leaning back and steepling his fingers as he did so, and Columbus gave a casual wave. Appearing to be fully satisfied with this, Foyle stepped lightly out from between the detectives and professors. "Now, gentlemen, you may ask any questions you desire."

"We—" began the Brain, but was quickly cut off.

"Which detective agencies are you with?" Phance inquired in a slow drawl, seeming slightly bored with the question. "We must be assured of the complete comp'tance of your efforts. Though, don't ya know, material evidence is utterly meanin'less. You've got to look for a criminal's _psychological_ fingerprints."

"Ehhhhhhhhhhhh..." Hercule Yakko trailed off halfheartedly before Columbus broke in.

"Yeah, what he said, what he said." The disheveled man waved his stubby cigar around carelessly, shifting slightly in his chair. "But what was your _connection_ to this robbery? An', just one more question, do you know where to get a decent bowl of chili in this town? I mean, I've looked _all_ over EVERYWHERE, up an' down, an' not _once_ have I found a good chili..."

"_Thhhhhhhhhh_say—" Twacy growled, stepping forwards, but the final professor, Ellery Cream, removed his nose from his book and launched himself in avidly.

"You know, this was going to be the plot of my next book! I'm a mystery writer—murder mysteries, mostly, but I think I can work that kind of subplot in here. What do you think a good motive would be for the guilty party?"

Where multiple (and somewhat anti-Semitic) protests had failed, Pinky finally managed to cut off the endless stream of words with a short, nasally burst of laughter. "This's what _I_ call fun-fun-silly-willy!!" he declared exuberantly, plopping himself on the tabletop and extending his feet towards the three professors. "G'wan, ask me what my shoe size is!"

A swift kick in the rear, however, and the watchful glare of the Brain made sure that Pinky quickly rose to his feet, still chortling ecstatically and twirling his tiny umbrella in his hands. Foyle smiled somewhat dryly, and the three professors expressed their own amusement with barely-concealed chuckles. Brain's ear twitched.

"May we proceed?" he grumbled.

Foyle swept a hand across the row of professors, still wearing his enigmatic smile. "Please feel free to begin."

Both the Brain and Duck Twacy stepped forwards to speak, but Hercule Yakko calmly shoved them back towards the door and the back of the coffee table, respectively, and strode up himself. Ignoring the unsavory language being directed his way by the tangled heaps behind him, he paced back and forth before the professors, who calmly watched him do so.

Complete silence. Complete and utter silence for nearly a minute. Then:

"WHERE WERE YOU ON THE NIGHT OF AUGUST ELEVENTH?!?"

Columbus scratched his head, Phance lowered his eyelids, and Cream asked the question outright. "What does _that_ have to do with anything?"

Yakko shrugged, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "I'd hoped you could tell me what _I_ was doing."

Twacy and Brain had just managed to struggle to their feet and start towards the professors again when Dot gave out a sigh, muttered "_Boys_" and nonchalantly kicked both detectives out of her way. Roughly elbowing Hercule Yakko to the side, she smoothed her skirt down daintily and spontaneously made a flying leap onto Phance's lap, squeezing him into a bone-crunching hug. "He-LLOOOOOOOOOO _NURSE!_"

This action took many in the room aback, but Phance seemed strangely unaffected. "Most illuminatin'," he remarked, somehow managing to extricate enough of himself from the girl's grip to pull out a notebook and start jotting down a few notes. Satisfied, he stood up, Dot still dangling from his neck, and walked straight up to Wakko and the recovering Hercule Yakko. "I'd like t'hear about your childhoods, if y'wouldn't mind, an' yer parents. I'm most int'rested in what makes her act like this."

Wakko wrapped his arms around himself, tongue lolling out. "Steve's like our mommy an' daddy rolled into one!" he replied dreamily.

Yakko smirked. "Aaaaaaaaaaaah...without the appropriate operation, of course."

Professor Cream shook his head, emitting a slow whistling noise. "You never give up, do you, Phance?" he joked, at last fully putting down his book. "You'll psychoanalyze anyone unlucky enough to get in your reach. Don't you get tired of it?"

"How c'd you get tired of psycho_analyzin'?_" Pinky cut in indignantly, frantically waving his umbrella at the bookworm. "It's just one a' those things y'can do _over_ an' _over_ an' never get sick of! It's so much FUN an' easy to do! You should be _ashamed_ of yourself for thinkin' he wouldn't like doin' it!" Then, leaning back, Pinky glanced at the Brain. "Hey Sherlock Brain, what's 'psychoanalyze' mean?"

Following a reflexive motion by the Brain that was so quick it was barely seeable, Pinky suddenly found himself face-down on the floor. This development announced itself to his cryptic little mind by way of a raucous giggle, accompanied by a "_Zort!_", and he began to slowly sink into the ridiculously thick carpet as Brain plodded forwards on the table he was standing on.

"If we may overlook the professor's _hobby_ for the time being..." he began tersely, but then a hush fell over the room. Phance, with Dot still dangling limply off of him, very deliberately turned to face the small (and suddenly feeling it) mouse with an unreadable but still chilling expression.

("Here we go," mumbled Columbus tiredly, shifting in his seat.)

"A _hobby?_" inquired Phance in a flat voice, cocking his head ever so slightly as Brain self-consciously shrank away from him. "Most int'restin' way of puttin' it. D'ya know, I don't think it'd be beyond you t'call _La Persistencia de la Memoria_ a nice finger-paintin' done durin' Dali's lunch break. Psychology's a respect'ble field of study, one that's been growin' for deuced long and constantly advances an' revises its own opinions. In fact, though this's deuced annoyin' to debate with detectives, psychological ev'dence is even more useful than the material evidence at the scene of a crime. Just b'cause someone's fingerprints are found at a woman's house, don't y'know, doesn't mean that that's the murderer. The only _true_ way of solvin' a crime is to see what kind of psych'logical character could've planned that crime an' carried it out like so, then come up with someone of those characteristics with ample opportunity to do it. Since ev'ry different—"

It was here that, to the Brain's utmost relief, Foyle pointedly cleared his throat, causing Phance to halt the monologue and look up. "That's quite enough, Phance."

Phance stood there blinking for a moment, as if trying desperately to return to the rest of the world, then mechanically removed Dot from his neck, set her down on the floor and walked back to his chair. He sat himself in this with a heavy _thumph_, rubbing his temples, then switched his gaze to the Brain, who was pretending that he hadn't at all been worried. "Deuced sorry, old sport," Phance apologized, a slightly bewildered expression giving way to an exhausted one. "I just...get rather _emotional_ about the topic, don't y'know. And when I think of how I haven't been able to conduct an adequate exper'ment into human psychology for weeks..." He sighed. "You don't know _how_ hard it is tryin' to observe extreme reactions when there's never any _cause_ for them."

A flashback of various Pinky moments zipped through the Brain's large skull, and he attempted to control the urge to snort disdainfully. Meanwhile, in the background, Duck Twacy suddenly released all the frustration that had been pent-up this entire time that all the other characters were talking over him.

"ARE WE GOING TO QUES_TH_TION THE_TH_SE MAROONS_THHHHH_ OR **NOT?!?**"

"Temper, _temper_," Hercule Yakko chided nonchalantly, dusting off his sleeves and adjusting his monocle. However, he then turned back to the row of seated professors. "Aaaaaaaahhh...Big-Beak is right, though. WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS THEFT?!?!?!!? ..._And_ the father of Anna Nicole Smith's baby?"

Following that there was a ridiculously long interrogation scene that dragged on for about twenty more pages, but due to a surprise alien invasion of Acme Labs (and the resultant power outage), all that unsaved data was forever lost from my G3. So, being _far_ too lazy to rewrite all of that, I shall merely state that, as could be expected, neither Foyle nor the professors could contribute any helpful information—none of them had noticed any flaws in the security system or any of their colleagues acting strangely, and all four of them had left the lab together at eleven PM the previous night with complete alibis for all they had done afterwards.

In fact, the only event of real importance occurred just as Foyle began to lead the detectives and their corresponding assistants out of the room for a tour of the campus.

Professor Cream began to rise out of his seat at the same moment that Foyle exited the room, but with a sudden cry of pain he leaped fully out of the chair and began to rub the back of his right leg. Foyle calmly turned around and reentered just as Wakko and Dot piled up on Yakko's shoulders for a better view of the quietly swearing man, Brain scampering onto the cuff of the standing Phance's pantsleg in order to see. "Cream? What is it?" Foyle inquired calmly.

"Nothing," the young man protested quickly—a bit _too_ quickly, a fact that caused the raising of many detective eyebrows. "Just a sharp edge on the chair, I suppose." Cream took in a hiss of breath through his teeth, hobbling out of the room while waving away anyone who appeared concerned.

Duck Twacy stormed over to Cream's seat as Phance and Columbus also departed, poking deliberately into the soft plush of the cushion and then quickly withdrawing himself with an identical cry. "Owwww, that's_th_ _TH_**SHARP!**"

Within mere moments Brain was clambering onto the thick blue material, striding purposefully towards a small tear towards the foremost right corner of the seat. Pale white lining was poking out of the rip, only a bit larger than the Brain himself, and when he got closer he caught a glimpse of a metallic gleam concealed inside the lining.

It was a safety pin, the pointed side facing straight up—what had obviously injured Cream's leg. It was nestled far enough down in the cushion that one might not have noticed it unless you were close enough, or if it stabbed you.

"Intriguing," Foyle commented, face devoid of expression.

"What's it _mean?_" Wakko asked quietly, tongue hanging out of the corner of his mouth and slightly muffling the words. Then he stood up straighter, hands intertwined. "LUNCH?!"

"I refuse to tell you," Brain muttered, though in such a tone that it was impossible to tell whether he really knew or not. Rather than explain, he carefully removed the pin from the opening and placed it inside a large paper bag, which he had miraculously pulled out of his pocket. Then, sticking the bag back into his pocket and using his cape as a parachute, he jumped to the ground—however, due to the author's swift manipulation of the laws of gravity, he landed face-down with a _splat_ on the floor. Irritably dusting himself off (though all potential onlookers had already gotten bored and left the room), he stared for a moment at the pocket containing the safety pin, rubbing his chin. Then he too began to march out of the room—and paused. "_Pinky!_ Where are you?"

A small pink hand waved frantically from deep within the thick carpet, muffled noises drifting up through the padding. Brain rolled his eyes and, completely deadpan, reached into his pocket and drew out a Lifesaver™.


	8. Chapter 8

"_There are some who go through life with a shadow hanging over them, particularly if they live in a building which has long, wide awnings." —Lemony Snicket_

**Chapter 8**

Confusing Evidence (aka "A Mostly Boring Chapter But It's Somewhat Important If You're Actually Still Interested In This Fic")

After only a moment the two mice managed to catch up with Foyle and the rest of the detectives, the other three professors having apparently wandered off to some random point on the campus. Though this provided a perfect opportunity for any of them to leave town, like in most cheesy detective stories, the Brain didn't seem unduly worried; his face was still as stoic as always, and it was clear that his impressive mind was working diligently on something. Pinky seemed even less worried, as at the moment he was trying desperately to clean carpet lint out of his ears.

The hallways of Amblin University, unlike the laboratory, were much the same as any other school's, although as immaculately clean as if it had a team of obsessive-compulsive neat freaks for the janitorial squad. The off-white tiles were all trimmed to pure square shapes, any specks of dust brought by trampling feet seeming to evaporate straight off the sparkling surfaces. As clearly there was a massive trafficking of students, judging by the onslaught of young adults wandering by during the break between classes. As can be expected, this is an extremely worrying situation when you're merely two inches tall, and it was all that Pinky and the Brain could do to avoid being stepped on.

Not that they were successful at this, of course.

"I thought it best to guide you to the instructors' facilities," Foyle informed the group, who for all the world looked like a parade of tourists exploring the campus. (Except for the aforementioned pair of genetically altered lab mice, who just looked like they were doing an extremely accurate imitation of primordial soup.) "They're just this way, if you are so inclined to view them."

And so he led them through a slew of administrative rooms, including Foyle's own office, the faculty lounges, and the executive bathrooms (by request of Wakko). Each room was thoroughly turned upside-down and inside-out, occasionally literally, in search—though Twacy seemed to prefer delivering dramatic monologues, Hercule Yakko and company spent more time attempting to destroy things, and Pinky...well, what can one say? Contrastingly, the Brain needed only a cursory glance before he strode calmly off, waiting patiently by the doorway next to Foyle's smartly shined shoes.

And after all that came the _interesting_ part.

"These are the living quarters of the male science professors, gentlemen—myself included," announced Foyle, standing in front of a large building somewhere else on the campus. It was large and as white as the lab's tiling, seeming to taper to a point as it reached the top. A long antenna extended out of its tip, slim and shiny, and one could only guess as to its purpose.

"And _that_, gentleman, is the apparatus by which we receive the local cable access channels."

...Unless Foyle were to announce it to you first.

They soon entered the living room, which was where you arrived after opening the large, blue double-doors. The entire place was kept in a very neat and precise order, much as the school halls, except this room was carpeted thickly in beige and the armchairs arranged in a semicircle around the singular coffee table were much more comfortable than what would normally be found in a school corridor. (The trick to the question being, of course, that there are rarely armchairs in the middle of a school corridor.) The entire place was empty, seeing as classes were currently in session.

"My residence, as well as Phance's and Cream's, is on the second floor," Foyle explained, taking large strides through the room and around a corner, where a flight of mahogany stairs extended to the upper levels. The headmaster passed this by, instead directing them towards a banged-up, rotting wooden door set just beyond the stairwell. A brass plate, dull as the rest of the door, read "Columbus" in faded letters. "However, searching through Professor Columbus's room first might be deemed more prudent, seeing as it is so close at hand."

Foyle knocked lightly on the door, then effortlessly pushed it open with his palm. The door swung wide open on partially detached hinges, revealing a small, dingy little room sparsely populated with furniture but overwhelmed by waste.

"_Thhhhhhhh_say, WAIT A MINNIT!" interjected Twacy, spitting even more than usual. Dot winced, pulling a face, and, yanking sharply on Wakko's tail, opened his cap up like an umbrella. This meant, of course, that any and all excess saliva was deflected unceremoniously onto the two lab mice. In the meantime of this excessively pointless description, though, Duck Twacy placed both fists on his hips and glared accusingly at Foyle. "Do you have any warrants_thhh_ to _th_search thes_th_e preme_thhhh_ses_thhhh_? Or any other forms_thh_ _th_signed out in triplicate and los_th_t in the dead of night beneath a blue moon? Or even jus_th_t a handy-dandy bribe?"

Quite calmly—almost inhumanly so—Foyle reached into the chest pocket of his white lab coat and withdrew a neatly folded square of yellow lined paper. "I received the full written acquiescence of every professor involved to investigate their rooms. So, you understand, there are no laws being broken."

Twacy sputtered for a bit, obviously annoyed at some contradiction between his mindset and Foyle's response, then with a final grumble shoved his hands in his pockets and sullenly followed Foyle into the room.

In sharp contrast to the rest of the campus as they'd seen it, the room was utterly filthy. Dust formed mountains on top of a rickety, darkly-stained bookshelf in the corner, which was filled mostly with cheap detective novels that were also falling apart at the bindings. The singular dresser was lopsided, the moth-eaten mattress nearly hanging out of the bottom of the shabby bed and various articles of musty clothing strewn everywhere. Whatever cleaningperson kept the rest of the Amblin campus so spick and span must have one day decided to give up on Columbus's room—either that, or the sight had made them so nauseous that they'd set a precedent for what a large number of the visiting detectives were doing throughout this narration.

"_Speeeeeeeeeeew_," gagged Dot, grasping dramatically at her throat before turning to face an invisible audience. "To coin a phrase."

Wakko's face brightened, and he clasped both his hands together in excitement. "It looks like _my_ room!"

Brain's deerstalker slid backwards on his incredibly large skull as both his ears drooped, an expression of disgusted bewilderment on his face. After working his mouth soundlessly for several seconds, he whirled around to face the rest of the group. "Gentlemen, may I propose that the creature who inhabits this room is not of this planet? It would be utterly _impossible_ for any sentient being to accumulate that much waste over the span of an average man's lifetime!"

Pinky shrugged doubtfully, scratching his nose. "I dunno, Sherlock Brain," he replied, rummaging through his coat pocket and somehow pulling out a hardcover book with the face of a familiar round-headed boy on it. "Don't fergit about Pigpen!"

Foyle adopted a wry expression, beginning to pace around the room. "It is quite _impressive_, is it not? Columbus does not have the time or necessary willpower to clean his domicile, as he's constantly forcing in more work hours in the interest of extra pay...some old bills, I would expect. He's poor, as you say, as _dirt_."

"_Nooooo_," Hercule Yakko drawled sarcastically, leaning against the bookshelf and leaping back with a start as it collapsed under its own weight.

Slowly, eventually, the squad of detectives and assistants began to fan out and reluctantly search the room, leaving no stone unturned—though there weren't actually any rocks in Columbus's lodging, it wouldn't have surprised any of them. The Brain, however, shook off his remaining disbelief and scurried over to the once-white walls, rising to his tiptoes and passing his small palm over a blueish, gel-like substance covering a small, circular hole in the wall. He rubbed his chin, pondering something over, then turned to face Foyle, who was standing patiently by the door as always.

"I discern that this is an example of your university's ventilation system," Brain began, indicating the gel-covered hole with a wave of his hand. "Rather useful, allowing the particles of air to dissolve through the gel without allowing other debris to pass through, and clearly quite resilient. I wish to inquire whether there are similar structures installed in the burglarized laboratory."

"Of course," returned Foyle smoothly, his discerning gaze still focused on the disgusted band of detectives rooting through Columbus's personal belongings. "Temperature-controlling devices are most essential in the laboratories because of the immense amounts of stress the professors—myself included—must endure while working on experiments. A slightly cooler atmosphere, or sometimes a slightly warmer one, can be incredibly conducive to one's morale."

"Though not, perhaps, at the same _time_," Brain muttered as if to himself. His brow was furrowed, and his bloodshot eyes seemed to be focusing on something that only he could see. At length he looked up again. "Does your intricate security system also function _within_ the walls themselves? Or inside, for example, the plumbing?"

This remark caused Foyle to shift his gaze towards the small mouse, one eyebrow cocked almost imperceptibly. "I must confess, Sir Sherlock, that taking such measures would be pointlessly illogical." He rapped sharply on the wall, which made whatever noise walls do when they're very thick and very resilient. "The walls of every building and every room on this campus were synthetically crafted from the molecules of the most durable elements yet discovered—though coated with a somewhat more contact-friendly layer towards the inside so one's skull isn't crumpled by an accidental slip. It would be unutterably close to impossible for any sort of material to penetrate it, except for certain complex chemical compounds which only a select few know how to mix—and even _then_ none would be able to bring it within a mile's distance of the grounds without myself being alerted. Regarding the plumbing—and, as I presume you're implying, the ventilation system—there is even less need to guard those, as those inlets are _much_ too small for even a child to crawl through and would not even be able to fit the stolen devices."

Brain nodded slowly, then gave the headmaster a sidelong glance. "Then you are of the unalterable opinion that this was, to use the vernacular, an 'inside job'?"

Foyle's eyes became uncharacteristically hard, and he opened his mouth to speak when he was interrupted by a serious of excited, high-pitched squeals from Columbus's bedside. "Sherlock Brain! Sherlock Brain!!" Pinky cried, jumping up and down and waving exuberantly. "I found the meanin' of life!"

Beside him, Wakko excitedly held up a grubby-looking poster which had written on it, in big and bold print, "42".

Brain's eye began to twitch again, and he pulled roughly at the sides of his deerstalker in an effort to vent his need for gratuitous violence. "Perhaps it would be beneficial to proceed to the next room."

Once the detectives had reassembled, Foyle led them like a group of kindergartners back into the hallway and up the stairs. The next landing was quite spacious and looked out over the sitting room, but aside from Pinky nobody was quiet interested in the view—although Pinky was enthralled enough for the lot of them, leaning so far over the edge that only a timely opening by his umbrella and the suddenly heightened reflexes of the Brain prevented him from becoming a mousy pancake. At any rate, though, the Fellowship—wait, sorry, wrong fandom—the detectives and Foyle entered the first room they came to, which was marked "Phance".

Phance's decorating style was quite severe, a cluster of hard-backed chairs surrounding a mostly unembellished desk on one side of the room and a cushy but otherwise bare-bones bunk (hooray for alliteration!) tucked away on the other. Various paintings, all looking stunningly like originals, adorned the walls, and a record player sat in the corner with a bevy of classical albums stacked neatly and alphabetically at its side. A few texts in various languages were arranged neatly on a shelf above the desk, and a manila folder poked unassumingly out from between two of these. Needless to say, the room was _much_ more clean and organized than Columbus's.

"Fan out and search, men!" Yakko chirruped, eyes narrowed in mock-seriousness. "Double-check anything suspicious! Don't question fate! And put the cat out before you leave home!"

Following this last proclamation, he reached into the brim of his hat and pulled out a small gray cat with emerald-green eyes, who leaped to the floor. (Needless to say, this would have been bad for Pinky and the Brain had the cat not decided that Duck Twacy looked like a more filling entrée.)

"_Oooooooh_," Hercule Yakko then cooed while his assistants and the two genetically altered mice laughed their posteriors off at the screaming duck. Standing on his tiptoes—and even then stretching a little by utilizing the laws of toon physics—he snatched up the manila folder and started flipping through the papers inside. "NEEEEEEAT!"

"_Replace that folder immediately._"

Foyle's voice was cold as a dagger in a barrel of ice—which, brother, is _extremely_ cold—and even the irrepressible Yakko was compelled to obey, folding his hands innocently behind his back after the packet was back on the shelf.

"Those papers are part of Phance's experiments into psychology, and are his and his alone," Foyle went on in a terse voice. "You would require the personal permission of Professor Phance _and his supervision_ in order to peruse them."

Wakko made an airy waving motion at him, scrunching his face into a Harpo Marx-worthy gookie. "You're so _stiff_," he remarked casually, bouncing himself onto the bed and snatching up some of the record albums, looking them over for little apparent reason. "Awwww, _c'mon!_ Where's 'The Magical Mystery Tour'?"

Soon enough Dot, Pinky and a very haggard-looking Twacy followed his example (convoluted as it was), searching through the various articles of the room in case any of them spontaneously showed any sign of possible importance. As before, the Brain was merely waiting for the other detectives to finish, face cupped in his hands in deep thought. However, Hercule Yakko was clearly not searching for anything, but merely _pretending_ to look at Phance's effects, humming the tune to the Mexican Hat Dance very loudly and quite off-key.

Once the other rummagers finally looked up in defeat, they moved on to the next room down the hall. And, soon enough, they were all pushing desperately against the door, labeled "Cream" on the nameplate. The door was bulging outwards in a very cartoony manner, implying that some great force was pushing against it from the inside; and, seeing as it was an inward-opening door, it was understandable that the group was having immense difficulty getting in. At last, after a lot of effort and even more elbow grease (which helped to keep the hinges from squeaking), the door was pushed inside.

And they were buried up to their foreheads in a massive avalanche of books.

To clarify, _Foyle_ was buried up to his forehead in a massive avalanche of books. And, seeing as he was the tallest of the seven, this meant that everybody else was trapped underneath their own varying levels of books. Very characteristically, seeing as they were only around two inches tall in height, Pinky and Brain received the brunt of the weight.

**Insert — Sound Clip — AuthorsEvilLaughter.mp3**

Rising buoyantly to the top of the pile, Pinky coughed, giggled uproariously and emitted a "_Troz!_", slapping the side of his head until a pamphlet squeezed out his ear and flopped back onto the heap. "Ooooooh, that was _fun!_ An' I thought perfessers were s'posed to be all _stuffy_ like Brai—SHERLOCK BRAIN!"

Perfectly on cue, Brain's head popped groggily out from between two hardcovers, wobbling slightly from side to side. "D-_dooooo_ you HEEEEEEAR it, Pinky?" he slurred, eyes unfocused. "SSSSSSSSSomebody's LAAAAAAUGHing at usssssssss..."

Dot emerged next, a book lying spread-eagled on her face. She blew at it irritably, then ripped it off, studying the text for a moment. Another grunt, some form of unintelligible political comment and she, along with Yakko and Wakko attached to her ankles, rose out of the heap. At length a struggling Duck Twacy followed—Foyle, being used to this sort of thing, had extricated himself a few paragraphs before—and they all stood uncertainly on top of the sea of literature.

"_Bookworm_," Twacy snorted, and this room too (what little of it could be seen beneath the stacks upon stacks of tomes) was searched. It too yielded nothing of interest...except more papercuts than most of them had ever gotten at one time.

And finally, at the end of the hallway, in the biggest suite of the building, was Foyle's lodging.

One could see the headmaster's austere taste immediately upon entering, as the furniture was ornate, the tables and chairs stained in moderate hues to accentuate the swirling of the wood grain. Not a single item was out of place, or even crooked, a feat that stretched from the large couch by the window to the stacks of papers evenly spread across the desk, the central fixture of the chamber. Two doors stood facing each other on opposite walls, one closed and presumably leading to a closet and the other half-open, revealing a bedroom. An involuntary hush settled over the detectives as they stepped cautiously inside, the mere atmosphere of the room subduing them on its own power.

"Niiiiiiiice _plaaaaaaaaaaaaace_," remarked Hercule Yakko in a soft voice, looking the room over. He lifted a small white rug covering the wood-paneled floor, looking underneath it, then carefully replaced it with a whistle of amazement. "You didn't even _hide_ any dust bunnies! They're just _not there!_"

"In_cred_ible..." added Wakko, eyes growing wider. He poked his head beneath the desk, also looking for any sign, no matter _how_ small, of any kind of filth. It was almost unbelievable that any place could be that flawlessly clean.

Duck Twacy snorted derisively, shuffling over to the mahogany desk with hands thrust deep within his pocket. "Awww, he's_th_ gotta hide it _th_somewheres_th_!" he spat, using his index finger to flip through the stack of papers. "After all, there's_th_ no WAY tha—WHOOPS_TH_!"

A lone sheet drifted out from the opposite side of the pile, and the mallard scrambled to retrieve it, managing to scoop it out of the air just as it was an inch above the floor. Due to his position, this brought the printed side of the sheet right up to his face; although Twacy quickly thrust it out to arm's reach for fear of punishment, a questionably innocent look on his face, his composure soon melted into a Tex Avery double-take and the paper was before his eyes again. " 'Name: Antonio Blakes_th_, age: thirty-two, occupation: inventor and _th_small-time magician, _th_soc_th_ial _th_security num—" All the black feathers on Twacy's neck arched as the whites of his eyes grew to the size of hubcaps. Everyone was watching him now as he _th_spluttered out the last of this proclamation. "THES_TH_E'RE FAKE IDENTITY PAPERS_TH_!"

A thin, firm hand reached deliberately down and snatched the paper out of Twacy's hands, and his gaze tremblingly met Foyle's steely one. "There are some things," the headmaster enunciated quietly, but with so much power in the words that every shell-shocked individual in the room could hear him with perfect clarity, "that should not be seen, Mr. Twacy."

With most of his audience sufficiently paralyzed, the tall man stepped back over to his desk and slipped the sheet back into the middle of the stack. With that accomplished, he turned back to the row of detectives, his mouth a thin, hard line. "You may disperse."

It was more of a command than anything, and everyone obeyed, scurrying out of the room as quickly as they could. As his suite emptied, Foyle glanced surreptitiously at the stack of papers, at last showing a flicker of emotion in his dark eyes. Outrage—anxiety—maybe even fear.

A small figure moved outside Foyle's line of view, pressing itself tightly against the wall while silently moving towards the door. Brain's ears were stiff, listening for anything Foyle might let slip during this rare moment of weakness, but he said nothing, merely sitting down in his chair and rubbing his temples. The second Sherlock had seen all that he'd needed to see, and there were only one or two things more he needed to check before he could declare himself the greatest detective in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

"_The way I figure it, the world can't end today because it's already tomorrow in some other parts of the world." —Lucy Van Pelt from the _Peanuts _comic strip_

**Chapter 9**

Ultimate Culmination (aka "A Ridiculously Long Bridging Chapter But It Contains The Most Important Information In This Entire Stinking Story")

Pinky was waiting outside of Foyle's room as the Brain exited, though this was completely unintentional on his part; the little mouse had completely forgotten where he was. At the moment that Brain slipped (with much painful squeezing) through the crack beneath the door, Pinky had been attempting to reconstruct his day from the early morning on in order to reason out exactly what in the world he was doing.

"Lessee, I, um, _poit!_ watched, uuuuuuuuuhm, A _THIN MAN _MOV—no, no, wait, that was afore the start of the story...hmmmmmummmmm...oh yes, that _silly_ cartoon about two mice tryin'—wait, no, that wadn't it...nyuhhhhhh...THAT WEIRD TV NEWS THINGY! THAT'S RIGHT! Then there was an onion ring...or a telephone ringin'? Or—"

"Forgive me, Pinky," interrupted the Brain from behind him, expression as sour as ever. "I had forgotten quite how _idiotic_ you can be at the worst of times."

Pinky gave an embarrassed little giggle, tail whipping about behind him. "Sorry 'bout that, Sherlock Brain. I haven't had as many lines lines since chapter five."

This sentence earned him a swift bop on the head, something Brain had been holding back on for quite some time. "Once again, Pinky, I must remind you that there _is no chapter five_," he muttered angrily through gritted teeth, tail jerking spasmodically behind him.

Pinky stiffened in the middle of rubbing his overly-abused skull, eyes widening. "There's no chapter five?!" he cried, clapping both hands to the sides of his face in the classic _Home Alone_ style. "My goodness, the number at the top a' the page's gotta be _wrong_, then! Someone's gotta tell the au—"

A small shod foot smacking into Pinky's ankles and he was silent again, save for the random exclamations he was obligated to make while alternately hopping up and down on each injured leg. Crossing his arms grumpily, the Brain continued. "There is no chapter five, Pinky, _or_ a top of the page, _or_ an author. Because this is _not_ a piece of flawed penmanship in direct infringement of various copyright laws. We are going _through_ with this plot under our _own volition_."

Back in Acme Labs, Crackpot sat up (still in third person) and cheered gratuitously. "Thanks, Brain! I wanted to stick that shpiel in this chapter!"

"You're hardly welcome," Brain retorted automatically, then his head snapped up in shock and outrage at this slip in the fourth dimension. If any words could truly describe his current emotions, he was half disbelieving, half horrified, and a magical _third_ half annoyed, with his vocal chords constricting with the strain. "P-Pinky, did you hear—"

"_Why, yes I did, Sherlock Brain! This piece a' wood, here, he's a _brilliant_ conversationalist! He—oh, what was that, Plank?"_

Brain decided not to ask him after all.

"Soooooooo," Pinky drawled, falling into step beside Brain as he began to walk away, "whodunnit? Whodunnit?" He gasped. "WAS IT ORLANDO BLOOM? Oooooh, I always THOUGHT he looked _so_ suspicious—"

"No, it was _not_ a pretty-boy actor with a fanbase the size of a small universe," Brain replied shortly. "And that's all I shall divulge for the time being, until I have gathered further evidence and reaffirmed my hypothesis."

Pinky absently opened his umbrella, spinning it around above his head. Then, struck by a sudden thought, he began to dance wildly about, using the umbrella like a cane. "Look, Brain! _Zort!_ I'm Gene Kelly!"

Brain ignored him, plodding resolutely onward and out the (fortuitously open) door to the professors' rooms, striding down the pathway leading back to the Technological Department's building. Noticing this departure, Pinky quickly clapped a hand to the top of his bowler and hurried after him. "Where're we goin', Br—Sherlock Brain?"

Professor Phance happened to be walking by at that moment, undoubtedly on his way back to his room, but Brain, after much shouting and gesturing up to the man's ample height, managed to attract his attention. At length Phance squatted down on the pavement, flashing a dry smile at the Brain. "What's on your mind?" he inquired.

The Brain's gaze hardened, and there was a familiar gleam in his bloodshot pink eyes. "May I enlist your assistance in entering the laboratory?"

* * *

A tallish figure in a long brown coat, hanging by his tail from the TV antenna on top of the professors' dormitorial building, watched as the figure of Phance walked towards the Technological building with two white spots perched on his shoulders. Adjusting his monocle, Hercule Yakko swung back onto the smooth, tapered roof with a mischievous smile. "_Innnnnnnnn_teresting..."

Leaning comfortably back against the strange material, the toon boy opened his coat and removed a manila folder—the same one that Foyle had forbidden him to touch. He toyed with it for a time, extensively stroking it with his gloved fingers and pretending to contemplate it. "_Should_ I?" he mock-inquired, a suitably coy expression on his face. "Or should this dramatic tension go to waste?"

There was about a nanosecond of silence, then the folder was spread wide open and Hercule Yakko's nose was buried in the various papers. His tail flipped from side to side, gaining in speed as he read. Slowly he pulled the folder away from his face, eyes widening, and at length he cried out.

"WOW! _HE'S SEEN EVERY EPISODE OF _THE MUNSTERS_ EVER BROADCAST!!_"

Whistling over this piece of information (and some choice photographs of Yvonne DeCarlo that had found themselves in the accompanying file), Yakko flipped through the rest of the pages, skimming them for any useful information. At length his eyelids lowered, and a smug smile made itself at home on his face. "_Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_..."

* * *

"What'cha _doin'?_"

Columbus looked down at the small toonish boy walking by his side and gave a wry smile. "Headin' to the cafeteria," he explained shortly. "See if their chili's gotten any good since the last time I checked."

Wakko nodded solemnly, plodding down the university hallways with the disheveled man. He cocked his head up at the professor. "How come you don't like the chili here?"

Columbus shrugged noncommitedly, wrinkling his nose a little. "Ehhhh...just somethin' about it, I guess. Not as good as the stuff back home."

"Ahhhhhhhh..."

Wakko was clearly getting bored with this conversation, but he continued to accompany the professor to the school kitchen, where, after a little pleading with the cook on duty, they managed to get a pair of bowls filled with slop that didn't look too much unlike chili. Sitting down in one of the plastic chairs set up in the back of the cafeteria, the unlikely pair began to reluctantly eat. Well, _Columbus_ began to reluctantly eat; Wakko turned the bowl upside-down over his mouth and _inhaled_.

"That was _good!!_" he admonished the professor once he'd finished, wiping the excess goop off his face with gloved fingers and licking them clean. Columbus maintained his slightly disgusted expression, which prompted Wakko to stick his tongue out at him. Receiving no reaction from this, he attempted talking it over. "The _color's_ kinda yucky, but the texture's REAL good, an' the—"

"Hold it." Columbus suddenly held up a hand, cutting him off, and bent over, rooting about the tiled floor beneath his chair. Eventually he withdrew a small, grubby-looking penny, which made the crumpled man's face crinkle into a genuinely happy grin. "Ahhh, that's a keeper," he sighed, rubbing it on his lab coat and stowing it carefully away in his pocket. He looked back up at Wakko, who was staring at him with an extremely curious expression on his face. "What?"

Long black tail twitching slightly faster behind him, Wakko inquired, "Who writes your paychecks?"

* * *

_Toink. Toink. Toink._

At last Brain's head snapped up from the blueprints of the stolen devices, his eyes flashing irritably. "_Cease_ that, Pinky! I must concentrate."

Pinky grinned sheepishly at his companion, opening and closing the umbrella one last time before putting it away. "Sorry, Sherlock Brain..."

He absently began to play with his shoes, scuffing them against one another and listening to the vaguely squeaky sound it made. When that began to bore him, he turned to thumping his tail against the side of the strangely-shaped table. After that, it was cleaning out his ears, trying to fit his bowler hat over both his feet at once and then trying to cram both shoes onto his head. After that thirty-second interval, however, Pinky was bored again.

"What'cha' doin', Brain?"

The Brain shot another glare at Pinky, but subdued himself enough to perform his characteristic expository narration. "Inspecting the designs of these revolutionary inventions." His brow was furrowed, and he rubbed his chin with a small hand as he contemplated furiously. "If that was adjusted six degrees to the left," he muttered, mostly to himself, "and that repositioned with those wires crossed over _that_ way..."

He raised his abnormally-proportioned head, staring at a point somewhere beyond Pinky's shoulders. Though the Brain fought valiantly against it, a small, triumphant grin began to creep across his face, widening until it pushed his ears up to a full standing position. "_YEESSSSSS!!_"

"Hmm?" Pinky inquired sleepily, having been napping throughout the past rant.

The Brain responded by grabbing his companion roughly by the shoulders, shaking him back and forth in his excitement. "Pinky," he declared breathlessly, the brim of his deerstalker cap flopping up and down with every jarring movement, "Pinky, I know who it was and I _know_ how he _did_ it!"

"Oh my," was all Pinky had to reply to this. His ears perked up. "_Was_ it Orlando Bloom?"

The taller mouse fell onto his back with a hard _thwop_, allowing the Brain to loom over him impressively. (Not that Pinky noticed, instead just melting into his trademark Silly Grin™, but it was a pretty nice effect.) "There's only one more thing I need to know, Pinky," the Greatest Detective of All History demanded in a breathless voice. "These blueprints...just _where_ on the 'Sci-Fi channel' did you see them?"

Pinky told him.

And the final puzzle piece fell into place.

* * *

It was a matter of ridiculous convenience that Phance, Foyle, Cream and Columbus were all reading newspapers in the living room of their dormitory when the door burst open.

"AHA!" cried the silhouette of Duck Twacy in a slightly cracked voice, striding purposefully into the room. "I have you _now_, evildoer!"

"I beg your pardon?" all four professors asked in concert.

"You know who I mean," the mallard intoned darkly, stomping into the room. "You thought you were clever. But you weren't. Becaus_th_e NO ONE is_th_ more clever than Duck Twacy! And he's_th_ VERY clever! And you are NOT! For Duck Twacy is_th_ me! At leas_th_t, I think _th_so! That's_th_ what it _th_says_th_ on my unmention-a-bibbles_th_!" He took a deep breath after this sentence, placing both hands on his hips and raising his voice to an extremely loud volume. "YOU _th_stole the _th_stuff las_th_t night, annoyed that you weren't credited as_th_ much as_th_ you _th_should have been for your work! You forged that threatening note to divert _th_sus_th_picion off yours_th_elf, and diverting FURTHER by calling the theft IN yours_th_elf!! And all the while planning to es_th_cape onc_th_e the theft was_th_ pinned on _th_some other poor _th_sap, then get the patents_th_ for the _th_stuff under a new name and IDENTITY!"

Foyle suddenly found himself on the receiving end of a black-feathered jab in the chest.

"_IT WAS_TH **YOU**_, PROFE_TH_SSOR FOYLE!_"

The headmaster's eyes were wide as none had ever seen them, an expression of anxiety on his face. "I'm afraid I'm forced to protest! I know _nothing_—"

"Aw, don't worry. Your doctor's had that figured out for _years_."

There was a small rumbling sound, and within moments part of the shingled roof caved in with Hercule Yakko sitting on top of it. (He'd clearly been setting this dramatic entrance up for quite some time, or else there was no way he could have broken the extremely durable roof.) There was a moment's pause as the boy dusted himself off, then he leapt to his feet with incredible agility and himself stalked towards the row of slightly stunned professors. "It wasn't Foyle, Mr. Obvious. IT'S TOO SIMPLE! And it'd make this an even more pathetic story than it already is." He shook his head, _tsk_ing disapprovingly, then resumed his pacing. "NO! The _real_ culprit had a more _interesting_ motive...PSYCHOLOGY! He wanted to conduct an experiment to see how his colleagues would _react_ to their precious INVENTIONS being stolen—he'd even complained that he's never been able to test subjects under extreme conditions! And here was a way to _get_ those extreme reactions, and, at the same time, take REVENGE on them for keeping him from _performing_ these psychological experiments on a regular basis. **IT WAS PROFESSOR PHANCE!**" Before anyone could respond, Yakko pulled the telltale manila folder out of his pocket and opened it to the correct sheet of paper. "HERE'S THE EVIDENCE! A _SMOKIN'_ PICTURE OF YVONNE DECARLO **AND NOTES ON HIS COLLEAGUES' BEHAVIOR STARTING **_**TWO DAYS**_** BEFORE THE STUFF WAS STOLEN!!**" Hercule Yakko flashed an annoying grin, tracing a fingertip over a line of text. "An' it called _that_ day 'Zero Hour'."

"Awwwww, go _shove_ it!" snapped the voice of Wakko before a clearly distraught Phance could speak. The shorter toon popped out of a picture on the front page of Professor Columbus's newspaper, getting right in the incredibly surprised man's face and poking him in the nose. "_It_ was 'IM! 'E's so _poor_ 'e saves _pennies!_ Sellin' that stuff woulda' made 'im _rich_, an' he coulda gotten 'is revenge on Mr. Foyle, who's the one who doesn't _pay_ 'im enough!" He concluded the accusation with an outraged slap across Columbus's olive face. "An' besides, 'e doesn't like the _chili_ here! 'E's _gotta_ be a crook!"

"I—" began Foyle.

"You—" Phance intervened.

"Just one more—" stammered Columbus.

All was to no avail, as with a _crash_ Dot entered the room by courtesy of the window. "_Boys_," she moaned, glaring at the other detectives. "You have _no_ sense of woman's intuition!"

"She's got that right," replied Yakko with a smirk, rolling his eyes indicatively.

"IT WAS _CREAM!_" To make her point, Dot removed the man's glasses and shook them forcefully at all present. "Not _only_ is he not cute, there was that _icky_ safety pin in his chair, he acted strange when he found it, _and_ there's this same plot in one of his books!" She pulled out the same book that had upturned on her face when they'd entered Cream's room, flipping it into the lap of the blinking professor. "That one was really dry. You might wanna try peddlin' papers instead, sonny." She turned back to the others with a dramatic pose just as Professor Cream was about to finally snatch back his glasses. "HE WAS JEALOUS OF THE OTHER GUYS' TALENTS, 'CUS _HE_ ISN'T AS GOOD A SCIENTIST AS _THEY_ ARE! AND HE'S ALSO A LOUSY AUTHOR!"

"NOW _THHHHHHH_SEE **HERE!!**" spat Twacy, jabbing a thumb at his chest. "_**I'M**_ THE GREATES_TH_T DE-TEC-A-TIVE THAT EVER LIVED! _IT WAS_TH**FOYLE!!**"

"Yeah, RIGHT! It was COLUMBUS! _HOW C'N YOU NOT LIKE THIS TOWN'S CHILI?!_"

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, _please_. I think we ALL know it was Phance. Criminal intent is written all over his face—well, maybe if someone could run and get me a bucket of paint..."

Dot brought her fist down on the table in the center of the room, (accidentally?) smashing Cream's glasses with the motion. In the background, a quiet but distinct rumble sounded. "IT WAS CREAM!"

"PHANCE!"

"COLUMBUS!"

"FOYLE!"

"**DR. PINKSTON!** _IT WAS DR. PINKSTON!_ 'E'S BEEN SKULKIN' AROUND HERE _ALL DAY_ WEARIN' A FALSE MUSTACHE AN' SPEAKIN' IN A _REAL_ UNCONVINCIN' SILLY ACCENT!"

This statement, needless to say, brought everyone's bewildered attention to the thin, mustachioed mouse standing on the table, who had apparently wandered in during the discussion just in time to input his two cents.

"Your theories are quite entertaining, but all immeasurably inaccurate," intoned the Brain quietly, stepping out from behind Pinky. His expression was pointedly deadpan, but the traces of a victorious grin were already forming at the edges of his mouth. "For _I_ know the true identity of the thief."

"Oh _yeaaaaaaah?_" sneered Duck Twacy, glowering down at the minuscule rodent who'd stolen his thunder. "_Prove_ it."

There was no need to ask, as the Brain was clearly gearing himself up for the dramatic revelation, underscored by the continued rumbling. "All of you fail to see the larger picture. You obsess over your small details and learn nothing."

Suddenly Brain reached into his pocket, pulling out a small, floppy circular piece of a blue plasmalike substance. "This was found on the floor in front of the vent in the laboratory—the filter for the air conditioning system and also the only material covering the vent's opening. It had been burned off the wall by a concentrated blast perforating around the edges." He threw it onto the ground so all could gawk at it. "The results seem remarkably similar to what might have happened were the experimental _laser_ used to perform this task."

Here he paused, smugly taking in the astonishment of those around him. Pinky's tail snapped up, and he started to bounce up and down. "Why'd 'e want t'do that, Sherlock Brain?" he rattled off excitedly, repeating the exact lines Brain had told him to say at that point in his speech.

"To abuse the vernacular once more..._elementary_, my dear Pinkston." Brain resumed pacing, his voice practically bursting with his egotistical sense of superiority—well-earned, but egotistical nonetheless. "To transport the stolen goods out of the laboratory. The air vents aren't guarded by the security system."

"But—" Cream spluttered, rising to his feet and cutting off Pinky's rehearsed protest with a spontaneous one of his own, "but those devices couldn't _fit_ through the air duct! They're barely three inches in diameter, and those prototypes were all over a foot tall! This is _preposterous!_"

Brain waited until the end of this tirade, eyelids lowered in condescension. "You forget the molecular enhancer," he remarked simply, trying to make the comment seem as offhand as possible. "With its power, and _suitably modified into a working state_, it could have disassembled the atoms of the other devices and reassembled them at a smaller scale, effectively shrinking the objects. And I was quickly able to discern the fatal flaw of the contraption—its rays would bounce off of reflective surfaces." Another pause for effect. "It merely had to be aimed at the tiled floors, and the enhancer _itself_ could be altered."

"But why'd they want to take 'em through the air vents _anyway?_" Dot demanded huffily, apparently irritated at how smart Brain could sound if he put his immense mind to it. "It's _stupid!_"

"For once my sister's _right_," Hercule Yakko quipped, giving Dot an elbow in the ribcage in response to her glare. He cocked his bowler forwards on his head, smoothly grinning down at the minute detective. "They'd have to _have_ the laser in the _first_ place to sneak in through the vents. An' besides, present company excluded, no one c'd fit through there anywhose."

"I never said that the thief _entered_ through the vents." Brain was running hot now, full of vigor and unafraid to use it. He pulled something else out of his pocket. "You forget the safety pin so fortuitously hidden in Cream's chair, _sharp to the point of laceration_." With a swift movement he whirled on his heel, facing Foyle. "Those chairs were delivered to the laboratory _yesterday_, the day preceding the theft—_am I correct?_"

A simple nod was enough to tell him that he was. In the meantime, the strange rumbling seemed to be increasing in volume.

"The perpetrator infiltrated the building through concealment in the cushions of those chairs. That ridiculously thick plush material was so dense that the thief was securely hidden from the detection of the security devices. Once all had departed, it was a simple matter to use a safety pin to cut out an egress."

"But _why?_" demanded Professor Phance. The determination on his face displayed his professional interest in the psychological reasoning, but he was clearly agitated by the continuing mystery. "Why go to such brilliant but _Goldbergian_ lengths? Which _professor_ would have to go to the mildly irritatin' lengths of sneaking in through the _seat_ of an _armchair?_"

By now the rumble was clearly identifiable as a steady chorus of _boom_s, each occurring within seconds of the other and becoming progressively louder with each one. The foundations of the building began to quake, even though they had been made from a compound of the most durable elements that existed. Dot jumped for the security (what there was) of Phance's arms, and Pinky clasped his bowler to his head, whimpering. Brain had to shout to be heard over the noise.

"JUST MOMENTS AGO, IN THE LABORATORY, DR. PINKSTON INFORMED ME WHERE HE HAD PREVIOUSLY RECOGNIZED YOUR BLUEPRINTS FROM!" he declared, clenching his fists dramatically. A loud clanking noise began to accompany the booms. "IT WAS ON A PROGRAM ENTITLED 'THE SCIENCE IN SCIENCE FICTION', AND THEY WERE DISCUSSING THE PRACTICAL METHODS OF BUILDING AS IMPRESSIVE A ROBOTIC FORM AS ONE FOUND IN A CERTAIN _STAR WARS_ MOVIE. _A ROBOTIC FORM WHICH MY COMPANION AND I HAVE SEEN VERY RECENTLY_—IN A CHEAP APARTMENT IN BURBANK, CALIFORNIA!"

A huge shadow fell over the room, and the cause could be immediately identified as a large form moving in front of the hole Hercule Yakko had made in the roof. Glaring up at it, the Brain sucked in a deep breath, emptying the entire capacity of his tiny lungs for this single proclamation.

"THE 'REVENGE' MENTIONED IN THE LETTER WAS AGAINST **ME!** MY DEAR PROFESSORS, THE PERPETRATOR OF THIS CRIME WAS NONE OTHER THAN _SNOWBALL!_"


	10. Chapter 10

"_Aw, c'mon, be REASONABLE. You can't destroy EVERYTHING—where would you SIT?!!?" —the Tick [from the cartoon TV show—c'mon, we've all watched it at some point in our lives..._

**Chapter 10**

A Day Of Reckoning (aka "Hamsters and Destructive Implements Do Not Mix", aka "A Chapter I'm Not Happy With But Will Post Anyway Because I Don't Want To Rewrite It")

With another resounding boom, the rest of the roof (and a substantial portion of the rooms upstairs) flew away, knocked clean off the rest of the building with a powerful blow—and it had to have been impossibly powerful to break through the scientifically-enhanced materials that had constructed the dormitory. Through this new skylight was clearly visible the form of a robot, four-legged and somewhat doglike in shape. But it was colossal, with long towering legs and a narrow, triangular head protruding out in front, some stories above—a mecha instantly identifiable by _Star Wars_ buffs as an AT-AT walker. Duck Twacy dove behind an armchair upon its entry, quivering, as Yakko and Wakko clutched each other tightly in fear. Even the professors had jumped out of their chairs with alarmed expressions, flattening themselves against the wall.

Only the Brain seemed as stolid as ever, and only he refrained from flinching as tinny laughter reverberated from a speaker on the side of the automaton.

"_Very clever, my world-famous friend,"_ mocked a British-accented voice, underscored by a light hiss as a pneumatic hatch opened on the head of the Walker. The voice lost its mechanical effect, as they could now hear it from its owner. "But I'm afraid that the great 'Sherlock Brain' overlooked perhaps the SIMPLEST clue of them all. You see, I decided to play your game, Brain. And who would take such great revenge against dear old Sherlock but his very own _Moriarty?_"

Snowball had indeed played his part out to the fullest, as an onlooker with extremely good eyesight would be able to see him situated in the "pilot's seat" wearing a large black top hat, with a long cape fluttering behind him. The effect was, even Brain might admit in the furthest recesses of his mind, incredible. Until Pinky broke it.

"SHERLOCK BRAIN!" he gasped, jumping into the air and frantically waving his arms as though he was trying to fly. "IT'S _PROFESSOR SNOWIARTY!!_"

The malevolently evil hamster gave off a small chuckle, directing a condescending glance at the Brain. "You see, 'Sherlock Brain'? Even your dimwitted _sidekick_ was able to grasp the concept before yourself."

Brain began quivering slightly, fists clenching and unclenching as his deerstalker shook between his large ears. "You shall not succeed with your deplorable scheme, _'Snowiarty'!_" he snapped, jabbing a thumb at his chest. "The world is MINE to rule!"

This merely caused Snowball to laugh harder, pressing forwards on a pair of joysticks on a console in front of him. The front legs of his mechanical monster bent backwards, and the head-piece lowered far enough down that Snowball's pink eyes were only a few feet away from Brain's own. "Oh dear, Brain, I fear you're in _denial_," he stated in a mocking tone of voice, then he brought his left fist down on a conspicuous red button.

An extremely concentrated laser burst out of a gunlike apparatus fixed to the underside of the robot's "head", and for a moment all of the Brain's thinking processes were shut down. However, it was pointed not at the Brain but at a wall opposite, which was fell neatly out of its frame in two pieces. But none even noticed or cared, too absorbed with the sight before them.

The entire courtyard of the university was filled with identical robots, marching straight through all buildings in their path with militaristic regularity.

"You see, dear Brain, it was all _ridiculously_ simple," cackled Snowball, delighting in the rare look of shock stretching across the face of his nemesis. There was no way he could stop Snowball from taking over the world first if the hamster had such a huge army at his disposal. "Of _course_ I used those methods you described to steal those silly _toys_ your professors had been making. I must admit that they _were_ far more advanced than I had expected, but they were still _terribly_ juvenile."

The scenes of destruction continued playing out in front of them, the Walkers knocking down massive sections of the campus and firing deadly lasers in every direction, bisecting the tops of buildings. Hundreds upon thousands of people were running away, screaming, but there didn't seem to be any casualties—_yet_. At least, there were no visible corpses.

Snowball was clearly delighting in all of this, his twisted mind gaining no greater pleasure than from the destruction his creations were bringing on. "_This_ is what science is meant for, Brain! This is why even the scientists in that infernal 'Acme Labs' are working! _All technology is eventually used for war._ The pistons you created for your 'improved internal combustion engine', Professor Columbus, powers my entire army. The meticulously precise laser generator can clearly be seen attached to my robots. All it took was for the _molecular enhancer_ to disassemble the molecules of my model and enlarge the components to a massive scale, then create a series of carbon copies of the entire automaton." Here he paused to gloat, making sure that none of the impact of his accomplishments was left unappreciated. "Of course, none of those devices worked as such in their raw form. _I_ improved them—even managed to build the fabled perpetual energy generator needed for that engine. **WHO BETTER TO RULE THE WORLD THAN THE WORLD'S GREATEST SCIENTIST?**"

"H-h-h-HE _th_stole the _thhhhh_stuff?!?!" spluttered Duck Twacy, pulling his fedora down around his entire head as he peeped cautiously out from behind the chair. "BUT THEN WHAT WERE THOS_TH_E FAKE IDENTITY PAPERS_TH_ IN FOYLE'S_THHH_ OFFI_TH_CE?"

"A former high school friend of mine has been entered into the witness protection program!" Foyle replied in a strangely high-pitched voice, still pressed firmly against the one still-standing wall with wide eyes. "I was keeping those papers for him until he could pick them up and assume his new identity within the school!"

Hercule Yakko's grip around Wakko tightened, and his knees started knocking together. For once in his life he was too frightened to make a snappy comment—toon powers and destructive science were not well-known for mixing positively. "But what about those psychological thingies Professor Phance had? What was 'Zero Hour'?"

It took Phance a moment to respond, as he was too fixated upon the destruction outside. "Last night I removed all the ice cream sandwiches from the college refrigerator!" he confessed frantically. "I was going to catalogue my colleagues' reactions to _that!_"

Dot had pressed herself so close to the normally stoic psychologist that she was nearly embedded in his chest. "BUT THEN WHAT ABOUT MR. CREAM'S REACTION TO THE SAFETY PIN? AND HIS BOOK PLOT?"

"I WAVED AWAY THE MATTER BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT ANYONE TO SHOW ME FALSE SYMPATHY! AS FOR MY BOOKS—" Cream buried his head in his hands, shoulders heaving as he began to sob. "I'M A FRAUD! I DON'T EVEN _KNOW_ THE PLOTS OF ANY OF MY BOOKS! **I HAVE A GHOST WRITER!!**"

The statement was punctuated by a sonic boom as the main administrative office tumbled to the ground, creating a massive shockwave that warped the very air itself. Brain tried to throw up an arm to shield his eyes—but it was too heavy. There was something hanging on to his arm, gripping it tightly enough to cut off the circulation.

"I'm scared, Brain," breathed Pinky, his entire body shaking and tiny legs barely holding him up. He turned to look at his companion, eyes brimming with tears. "Are we gonna be all right?"

The only answer Brain could give was a clouded, somewhat uncertain expression. Then he gently eased his arm out of Pinky's grasp, nudging the taller mouse behind him as he stepped forwards to confront Snowball again. "That's quite an impressive army you've raised there, 'Professor'," he remarked almost casually, though a slip of sarcasm wormed its way into his tones. "But surely they can't _all_ be individually piloted. You don't _have_ that many _friends_."

As quickly spun off as the ad-lib was, it had a fierce effect on Snowball; the golden fur on the hamster's shoulders stood on end, and his fists clenched so hard that his knuckles turned white. But he quickly regained his composure, smoothing down his coat and forcing his countenance back into scornful superiority. "One doesn't need 'friends' to rule the world, Brain," he answered scornfully, a smug smile creeping across his face. "That's why you shall never succeed, with that barely vocal _deadweight_ 'assisting' you."

Pinky began to quiver even more violently, but the Brain pressed his hand lightly against the taller mouse's shoulder. And, more than a promise of safety, more than a kind statement, this reassured Pinky. Though Brain had difficulty with using words as anything other than an unemotional medium, he was rarely unsure of his actions, and so this momentary touch communicated much more than he could ever have spoken outright.

"Did I strike a nerve, Snowball?" Brain taunted, his impressive mind working at three times its normal rate in search of a course of action. The sentences he formed were mostly subconscious, random filler statements to keep Snowball talking and, hopefully, minimize the damage the hamster could inflict in the interim. "My apologies. I wasn't _aware_ that you were complex enough of a _being_ to feel _injured_ by it. I was thrown off by the fact that you're simple enough that I can get a _rise_ out of you."

Snowball's anger flared up again, and he punched his console. The sounds of destruction around them became louder, the booms resounding at an ear-splitting pitch and the screams increasing in volume. Duck Twacy began whimpering again. "Make him _thhhhhh_stop!!!"

This outburst was enough to divert Snowball's attention to the frightened mallard, and correspondingly the nearby Hercule Yakko, who was about to pull a rope mysteriously dangling from some point far above them. The hamster immediately snapped out of it, leaning forwards in his seat to glare at Yakko. "Oh, none of your dreadfully 'toony' tricks, _Monsieur_ Hercule," he snarled, pulling out a tiny, boxlike machine that was instantly recognizable from the blueprints for the molecular enhancer. His fingers moving like lightning across a control pad in the side of the apparatus, Snowball fired a small stream of white light at the rope, reducing it to its base molecular components before it could cause the release of anvils or other blunt objects. "They _bore_ me with their _monotony_."

Brain's eyes flashed towards the army of Walkers just outside, who had come to a complete halt. _Not a single one of them had moved since Snowball had switched his focus to Hercule Yakko_.

And he suddenly knew what had to be done to keep Snowball from taking over the world before he did.

"Really, Snowball, I expected more of you," Brain taunted, stepping forwards. "A hostile takeover by a robot army is one of the oldest clichés in the book!"

This garnered the hamster's attention back to his nemesis, his fur bristling again slightly but his tone still affectedly relaxed. "Oh, so I'm _unoriginal_," he returned, pink eyes flashing. "At least _my_ plans have practical applications, unlike _your_ schemes. REALLY, Brain, an endless bout of international _shampooing?_"

Snowball nearly managed to turn the tables on Brain with this remark, and it was only by remembering the world rulership at stake that the diminutive mouse was able to keep from falling for the ploy. "My, Snowball, you've been holding out on me." He had been waiting nearly his whole life for this kind of situation, and so he had more than enough ammunition stored inside his overly large cranium. "If only you'd _shared_ these plans back in the days when we'd worked together after the gene-splicing disaster."

Every set of eyes in the room was flicking anxiously between the two opposing rivals, more than a few confused as to what was going on. Snowball seemed to think that he'd gotten the upper hand, however, as he lowered the head of his Walker even further to sneer dramatically down at the Brain, who remained unmoving and unblinking. The sounds of destruction had returned. "You had your _chance_, Brain. You could have joined me in my _rulership of the world_."

In a movement so swift and subtle that it escaped the notice of almost all concerned, Brain used the heel of his foot to shove Pinky nearly six inches further behind him. "Oh, so _this_ is what all of this has been about!" Brain responded, faking a momentary realization. He pointed straight up at Snowball, putting as much weight as his vocal chords could muster into his proclamation.

"_You're jealous of Pinky_."

The hamster was motionless for only a moment, as a moment was all it took before the sentence registered in his mind and his fur began to puff up again. Brain assumed a smug expression, placing both hands behind his back and waving frantically at Pinky with them until the taller mouse backed up even more.

"Yes, Snowball, _jealous of Pinky_. Jealous of a half-wit nimrod who can barely even spell his own name. Why else would you go to such lengths to try to capture him and turn him against me? I believe that Professor Freud would heartily agree with me, were he still alive to _treat_ you."

Snowball's eyes were blazing, and his shoulders hunched up and quivering from the tension. But the clearest indication of his rage was the fact that _he had no comebacks_. No clever phrase to turn the situation around, no swift change of the subject to something equally insulting to the Brain, not even a childish denial of the whole concept. _Nothing_.

"You despise Pinky. You loathe the fact that you can't understand him, or our continued partnership. You detest that I chose him over a secure guarantee of global domination. It confuses you, but it reminds you of something that you'd rather stayed forgotten. _You can't abide that I chose HIM over __**YOU**_."

Forsaking all of the endless technology at his disposal—the advanced laser that could have vaporized Brain off the face of the planet, the molecular enhancer that could have ripped apart all of his individual atoms, and even the simple foot of his Walker, the force of which could have stomped Brain out of even _toon_ regeneration abilities—Snowball _pounced_.

Brain had been expecting the attack, but he hadn't quite anticipated the sheer _force_ behind the hamster's lunge as he went skidding straight back across the table, Snowball on top of him, clawing ferally at the Brain's large head. Had he not sent Pinky scurrying away before, the tall mouse would certainly have been bowled over and caught in the fray.

Fury had empowered Snowball far beyond Brain's unused and neglected muscles, and it was all he could do to keep the hamster's feet from crushing his abdomen even as he tried to ignore the pain of the friction between his back, his clothing and the hardwood tabletop. He and Snowball were less than half an inch apart, Brain depleting all of his reserves of strength just to maintain that distance. Snowball was livid, practically reverted back to a primal state of being, exerting his newfound power with only the thought of killing the Brain. His hands were already almost around Brain's throat, one foot pinning down the mouse's kneecap and his other leg crunching his nemesis's already crooked and broken tail.

Seeing as the Brain's mind was several times more powerful than even some extremely advanced supercomputers, he knew right at that moment that his chances of survival had plummeted drastically, and, as such, he began to see his life flashing before his eyes. The old tin can he'd called home...his demanding parents...the net crashing over his head...the white van taking him away...the hideous experiments performed on him at the laboratory...Jackie Onassis bearing Bigfoot's dolphin child...

Wait a minute..._"Jackie Onassis bearing_—

With a massive start, Brain realized that he was staring at the headline of a newspaper, a newspaper that had been partially rolled-up and was now settled neatly inside a dent in Snowball's top hat, a large dent that extended down into his furry, overdeveloped skull.

"TALLY HO!!!" cried Pinky, lifting up the newspaper again as Snowball shook his head groggily. Pinky stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth in an attempt at maintaining his accuracy, smacking his weapon down on Snowball again. "_ZORT!_"

There wasn't a second to lose, as Snowball was already nearly recovered. His immense mind kicking his reflexes into overdrive, Brain scrambled out from under Snowball and stuck his foot into the small of the hamster's back, pressing his forearm against Snowball's neck to keep him pinned to the table. Perhaps it had been a good thing that Pinky would occasionally watch wrestling matches while in the same room as the Brain. He was panting furiously from the effort, as even now the hamster was beginning to struggle against him, but managed to whip his head around to face the still-stunned line of professors.

"YOU FOOLS!" Brain shouted in a strained voice, his pitch rising and lowering in fatigue. "DISABLE THE ROBOT! _HURRY!_"

Strength had returned to Snowball's legs by now, and he began to kick furiously against his aggressor. Sweat was pooling on the Brain's forehead, which his deerstalker cap had managed to stay attached to.

"JUST ONE QUESTION!" Columbus's voice was slightly shrill, and _both_ eyes, even the unfocused one, were wide. "**HOW WOULD THAT HELP?!!?**"

Pinky threw himself onto Snowball's knees, trying desperately to hold the hamster's legs down with his body weight. "YOU'RE ALL _NINCOMPOOPS!_" Brain barked, his arms already quivering from the continuous exertion. "DON'T YOU HEAR IT?!? _THE SOUNDS OF DESTRUCTION HAVE CEASED!_"

A silence descended over the room, broken only by the grunts of Pinky and Brain as they tried to restrain Snowball. There _were_ no other noises, and the giant robot army had clearly stopped moving.

"SNOWBALL REMOTE-CONTROLS THEM USING _HIS_ AUTOMATON AS A HOST! **IF YOU INCAPACITATE **_**HIS**_ **ROBOT, YOU IMMOBILIZE **_**ALL**_** OF**—"

He was swiftly cut off by a fist in his gut, and Snowball quickly grabbed both of Brain's feet and hurled him backwards into Pinky, the force of which knocked the taller mouse off of Snowball and allowed the hamster to rise to his feet again. "YOU'LL _NEVER_ STOP MY ARMY, YOU PITIFUL DULLARDS!" he declared, sprinting towards the head of his own Walker in an attempt to return to its control seat. "I'LL _STILL_ TAKE OVER THE WORLD BEFORE YOU, BRAIN!"

"OH NO YOU _WON'T!_" retorted Pinky, tackling the hamster while Brain attempted to recover. "SPOOOOOOOON!"

The professors and the other detectives stared on in confusion as Snowball and Pinky tussled, Snowball managing at length to shove Pinky out of his way only to have the Brain get back to his feet and return to the fray.

"...Shall we disable that robot, then?" inquired Foyle after a short while.

Hercule Yakko grinned impishly. "Hey, it's better than fighting an angry gerbil."

As the readers have probably already guessed, it would have been excruciatingly simple for any one of the substantially larger characters milling about in the background of this scene to merely pick Snowball up by the scruff of the neck, stick him in a jar or something and be done with it. However, the Brain was in the middle of his dramatic, life-or-death two-arch-nemeses-against-each-other-for-possession-of-the-world FINAL BATTLE, and this chapter would be even more boring without it.

"Give it up, _Snowball!_" wheezed Brain, even though he was currently sprawled face-down on the floor before the hamster. Snowball himself was slightly preoccupied with slapping away Pinky's hands each time the lanky mouse tried to tickle him into submission. Brain struggled back to his feet, rubbing at a string of what were surely bruises running up and down his left side. "Your army is about to be shut down, and with your arrest _I'll_ be declared the greatest detective ever _and_ the ruler of the world! _You've already lost!_"

Snowball merely scowled at him, grabbing Pinky's nose and using it to slam the taller mouse to the tabletop just like Brain had done so often. "You're always so _presumptuous_, Brain," growled the hamster, his voice low and hoarse. "Always convinced you have the upper hand just because you outnumber me by _one idiot_." In a flash he was directly in front of Brain, and in another flash he had hauled the diminutive mouse up by the collar and suspended him over the edge of the table. "You can't exactly dominate the world from the _afterlife_, can you, Brain?"

Inwardly Brain cursed himself for allowing the fight to carry them to the tabletop's brink, trying to resist the instinct to struggle. That would only get him into a freefall to the floor below—and, in his current condition, he wasn't quite sure that he would be able to survive that.

Snowball inched further towards the edge, clearly taunting his foe. It was all Brain could do to keep his gaze level with Snowball's and not redirect it towards the haunting distance downwards. "Don't you remember, _Sherlock _Brain," the hamster mocked, jostling his captive just enough to send a jolt of panic through Brain's mind, "the classic Holmes story 'The Final Problem'? That one was _always_ my favorite. Holmes and Moriarty had a battle over the Reichenbach Falls, and Holmes fell over the edge."

Brain's deerstalker finally gave out and slipped off his cranium, drifting ominously down to the floor.

"If I recall correctly," returned the Brain in a broken voice, the tight grip on his collar slightly constricting his windpipe, "Holmes _survived_."

Slightly, _ever_-so-slightly, Snowball began to loosen his grip on the Brain, removing one finger at a time until it was only his thumb and forefinger keeping the mouse aloft. "Well, Brain," he sighed dramatically, "I was never much for being true to the source material."

Just then Snowball was _yanked_ backwards violently, Pinky's arms wrapped monkeylike around his waist. The hamster's resultant shock caused him to fully let go of the Brain, sending him hurtling downwards. But only for a fraction of a second, as Pinky's long tail struck out like a viper and curled itself around Brain's ankles, keeping him swinging in midair until Pinky had managed to knock Snowball out and could pull his companion up with his arms.

"BRAIN!" Pinky wailed anxiously, shaking the shorter mouse as he lay face-up on the tabletop. "Brain, are you _okay?_"

Snowball stirred a little off to the side, but Pinky bopped him on the head again for good measure. The Brain himself was blinking rapidly, face still slightly green from his previous vertigo, but he seemed mostly all right.

"P-Pinky," he began slowly, his voice wobbling a little as his eyes tried to refocus, "would you mind replanting the pachysandra? The _leaves_ have _lost_ their _luster_."

With a loud, choking "_NARF!_" of relief, Pinky squeezed the Brain into a bear hug of monstrous proportions, most likely rupturing several of the shorter mouse's vital organs in the process...or, at the very least, cracking his spine. Brain's shoulders hunched up with his obvious discomfort, but he allowed Pinky his sentimental exercise—until Pinky started nuzzling the top of his head.

"OK, now _stop_ that," he snapped, eartips coloring slightly as he pushed Pinky roughly away from him. He was quite touchy about people violating the sanctity of his head. Rising to his feet, Brain brushed off his palms, tousling his headfur as if to remove any lingering Pinky germs. He paused, looking down at the unconscious form of Snowball with a reasonable amount of disgust, then turned abruptly on his heel to face the AT-AT. Phance, Cream, Foyle and Columbus were holding up a tangle of disconnected wires triumphantly, looking extremely pleased with themselves, while Hercule Yakko, Wakko and Dot applauded respectfully. (Twacy was still hiding behind the armchairs.)

Then, to the surprise of Pinky and the delight of the Brain, all three of the professors bowed before him. "I believe that the entire human race owes you their gratitude," remarked Foyle, his enigmatic smile still playing across his face. Brain's own grin was a little less subtle.

"_YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!_"


	11. Chapter 11, Epilogue and Afterword

"_The Earth is safe! I did it, GIR! Now let's go destroy it." —Zim from the hysterical NickToon _Invader Zim

**Chapter 11**

The End (aka "The Inevitable Conclusion")

A swelling orchestral theme. The blindingly bright lights glaring off the lenses of hundreds of cameras, film and still. The deep red carpet, the elegant podium with a microphone perched on it, the rows upon rows of spectators inside the grand ceremonial dome-shaped building.

And, quite possibly the most important feature of all, the great gold disc that the Brain was now holding in his trembling pink palms.

"An' so," spoke a formally-dressed man with gray hair, largish ears and a melancholy look to his eyes, who shall forthwith be referred to as "Mr. President" to avoid any lingering lawsuits, "I declare Mr. Sherlock Brain the official Savior of the Human Race™, as well as The Greatest Detective To Ever Live™ an' a pretty darn nice guy."

Cheers erupted throughout the huge crowd while the Brain beamed victoriously, standing on a high stool set by the podium and still fully outfitted in his Sherlockian clothes. Behind him, Pinky blew his nose rather forcefully, wiping his eyes and wringing both fists in joy.

Across from them on the stage, Foyle and the rest of the Amblin University staff rose to their feet, dressed in their finest clothes and applauding vigorously. Professor Columbus had even managed to scare up a tuxedo for the occasion, and, though it was a bit wrinkled, at least it wasn't covered with oil stains.

"Because of your astute powers of observation, and your admirable bravery," Foyle began, bending down and placing a laurel around the Brain—since it was several times bigger than the mouse, the best he could do was put it down on the stool to frame him—,"that platoon of automatons was halted in time to prevent any casualties, as well as any further damage to the school."

This last article contained a hint of sarcasm; half of the campus had been utterly demolished, and it was only by virtue of a federal grant that they'd be operating again within a period of ten years. However, the saving of lives always seemed more impressive than the saving of buildings, so Sherlock Brain was still heralded as a hero.

"Thank you very much, sir," Brain acknowledged with forced modesty, bowing his head a little while his crooked tail twitched impatiently. "But, truly, I was only doing what any other superintelligent lab mouse would in my position."

OK, _some_ forced modesty.

The Amblin staff returned to their seats accompanied by even louder applause, and Hercule Yakko, Wakko, Dot and Duck Twacy stepped up to the podium. Twacy had his hands stuck deep within his trademark trenchcoat, glaring at the Brain with fire in his eyes. "THAT _TH_SHOULD BE **ME** UP THERE, BUB!" he _th_spat, pointing an accusatory finger at the diminutive mouse, then whirling around to face the audience. "Me! _ME!!_ **I'M** THE GREATES_TH_T DETEC-A-TIVE IN THE WORLD! _TH_SHOWER **ME** WITH GLORY!"

And so they did. In the form of tomatoes.

While an indignantly cussing Duck Twacy was hauled out of the building by security, Hercule Yakko and company trounced up to the podium, fully clad in brightly-colored lederhosen. Wakko immediately extended his hand, of which the Brain could only grasp a forefinger, and they did their best to achieve some form of handshake. "Heeey, nice work on savin' the world!"

Dot sidled sneakily up to the stool, placing her hand beside her mouth and speaking in a low voice. "We're still mad about you leaving _Animaniacs_, though."

The Brain pretended not to know what she was talking about, and soon he completely forgot about it as Hercule Yakko brought up a more pressing matter. "Ehhhhhh...and what _was_ that thing the gerbil was talking about?" he prompted slyly, making sure to speak directly into the microphone in as loud a voice as he could. "Something about you trying to _take over the world?_"

All eyes and ears were on the Brain now, and he began to sweat nervously. This wasn't helped when Pinky decided to step in for him, stretching onto his tiptoes to be better picked up by the mic. "Ohhhh, that's wha' we do _every night!_ Y'see, first Brain asks if I'm ponderin' what _he's_ ponderin', an'—"

"AHEM!" interrupted Brain, surreptitiously stomping on Pinky's foot and flashing a wide, nervous smile to try and cover up this action. "What Dr. Pinkston _means_, of course, is that we, eh, usually play a BOARD GAME where the object is to take over the world. Heh...we, um, used to play against Snowball, and apparently he's still mad that he always, uh, lost." Mopping his forehead with his deerstalker, Brain decided that a swift change of the subject would be fortuitous at this point. "SO! What _did_ befall Snowball, at any rate?"

Hercule Yakko rubbed his chin, still grinning widely over the Brain's previous predicament, and deliberated before giving his answer. "Aaaaaahhh...there weren't any small enough _cells_ in Guantanamo, so we just stuck him in a pet shop instead. It seemed kinda appropriate."

This, at least, Brain couldn't help but laugh hysterically at. But he quickly coughed and pretended he hadn't, as this wasn't exactly the behavior expected of someone who's being congratulated for saving the world. Pinky was able to giggle freely, however, as nearly everyone present had already decided that he was just an idiot.

Seeing as they'd fulfilled their duty, Yakko, Wakko and Dot skipped back to their seats, sitting neatly on them in an extremely coordinated fashion and then proceeding to make faces at everyone unlucky enough to glance in their direction.

By now, everyone was clamoring for a speech from the Brain. They wanted to hear the great Sherlock Brain speak, to tell them..._something_, whether it was a reflection upon the whole saving-the-world process, or a dissertation on cottage cheese, or even his memoirs, which would doubtless seem very boring to everyone except the old Kids' WB crowd. It didn't really matter what he said, as long as they liked it.

And Brain knew _exactly_ what it was that he was going to say.

"Greetings, men and women of the world," he began, enunciating as clearly as he could. The microphone was graciously removed from the podium and placed on the stool beside him, allowing his voice to be picked up more easily. Brain cleared his throat, trying to ignore the encouraging noises that Pinky was making behind him. "As you well know, I am Sherlock Brain."

This statement was greeted by cheers from all assembled in the vast dome. Of _course_ he was Sherlock Brain! That was who they'd come to see, and they were having a _marvelous_ time. As well, if that was all he really had to say, they could go home that much sooner.

Brain coughed again and tapped the microphone, a little fed up with all the ceremony. He wanted to be ruler of the world as soon as possible. "Yes, yes, thank you. I fully appreciate your adulation. In fact, I appreciate _all_ of you, and wish to protect you from further threats such as the one posed so recently by Snowball."

Another loud cheer, and several whistles. The world's population liked being appreciated, and they liked having someone to look out against bad guys so they wouldn't have to do anything about actually saving themselves. In fact, they liked this idea so much that they didn't notice the thin note of disgust buried within the Brain's intonation of the sentence. Of course he didn't _like_ them. He just wanted to rule them.

"However, as I'm sure that you have all noticed, I possess a mind many times more powerful than those of most other living creatures." A pause. "Except perhaps that of Ken Jennings." With that slightly obscure joke out of the way, Brain went on. "As such, it might _'occasionally'_ be difficult to comprehend all that I'm in the process of doing as I toil on a case. So I must ask for your combined faith in me, to trust to MY discretion, so that I may better take ov—_protect_ the world!"

The crowd was practically eating out of his hands. After all, he'd just told them that he liked them, and they were all too eager to go for a deal that ensured their safety at the lowest cost.

"SHERLOCK BRAIN!" they chanted. "SHERLOCK BRAIN! _SHERLOCK BRAIN!_"

"YAAAAAAAAY, BIG-HEADY GUY!" cheered Pinky, who had apparently forgotten everything in his life up to that moment. "YOU C'N _DO_ IT!"

Raising his fists triumphantly (and trying to resist the urge to whack Pinky with one of them), Brain faced the crowd. "WELL, WORLD?!" he boomed. "DO YOU DECLARE YOUR UNDYING ALLEGIANCE TO SHERLOCK BRAIN, _THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE?!_"

"The **WHAT?**"

A hush fell over the audience as a thin brown mouse, maybe half an inch taller than Pinky, emerged from beneath a seat in the front row. He scurried up the leg of the stool the shocked Brain was standing on, and, though the new mouse had a Disney logo covering his face for copyright protection, it was quite clear who he was based on his auburn coat-cape and the matching deerstalker perched on his head.

"I _beg_ your _pardon!_" spat the mouse in a distinctly British-accented voice, towering over the Brain and poking a finger into his chest. "My name is _Basil of Baker Street_, and only **I** am 'THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE™'! I'm suing you for copyright infringement!"

"I-it was unintentional!" Brain stammered, backing up towards Pinky for support. This was never a good idea, a fact that was proven yet again as Pinky merely continued playing with his umbrella. "I-it just slipped out, I can't understand why I didn't _catch_ it..."

Basil furrowed his brow in anger, or he _would_ have if you could have seen it past the concealing insignia. "As soon as my lawyer arrives—"

"He shall be required to deal with _mine_," interrupted a smooth voice, not totally unlike Basil's or even Professor Foyle's. An extremely fat man with a bushy black beard stepped out in front of the podium, startling nearly everyone in the building as he removed his beard _and_ a large pillow stuck inside his white collared shirt. Instead of the fat man there was now an extremely thin one, with high cheekbones and dark hair, immaculately dressed in a suit and tie. He stuck a clay pipe into his mouth but didn't light it for societally-friendly reasons. "For you are _both_ infringing upon _my_ copyright. **I** am SHERLOCK HOLMES."

"Sure it's not Basil Rathbone?" interrupted Pinky, rubbing the back of his neck confusedly. "_Poit!_"

Once again he was ignored.

"Violating _your_ copyright?" scoffed The Great Mouse Detective, crossing his arms. "You're within the public domain!"

"Are you inclined to wager upon that?" Holmes countered.

And, before anybody had quite figured out what was going on, the two were in a fistfight. Yes, a six-foot-tall literary character from the late nineteenth century was in a fistfight with a four-and-a-half-inches-tall animated rodent from the mid-eighties. On international television.

This was clearly going to impede Brain's plans.

"Cease, gentlemen!" he pleaded in a strained voice, trying to shout over the din as the two began a lively wrestle. (It was at the same time funny and pathetic that Holmes was without the upper hand.) "_Please!_" Brain turned to the security guards. "SEPARATE THEM! _I HAVEN'T FINISHED!_"

The security guards didn't hear a word he said, as they'd just tugged on huge T-shirts with the legend "WWF RULEZ!" emblazoned across the front, and they were cheering and pumping their fists. Totally at a loss for words, the Brain turned back to face the audience—

They too were similarly attired, hooting raucously as the action heated up in front of the podium and placing bets on the winner. Even Mr. President himself and the staff of Amblin University were among the revelers, waving pennants and screaming utterly ridiculous phrases at the top of their lungs. Columbus himself fully sprinted down to the stage, pulling an inflatable wrestling ring he'd just _happened_ to have in his pocket and beginning to blow it up as Professors Phance and Cream managed to guide the fray inside the roped boundary.

"WAIT!" Brain called, grabbing the microphone and broadcasting the appeal across the entire expanse of the dome. "_LISTEN TO ME!_"

Several members of the audience _did_ look up, but they didn't have very pleasant expression on their faces. "Hey, who's the shorty bustin' up the action?" demanded a lady with a large brown bouffant hairdo.

"BOO! GET HIM OFF THE STAGE!"

"_SCRAM_, YA LITTLE RUNT!"

Several of the spectators had now started to advance on him, cracking their knuckles menacingly. "You can't _do_ this to me!" protested Brain, trying to back away. "I'm Sherlock Brain! I saved the world!" Desperate, he took in a deep breath and yelled at the top of his lungs. "_SECURITY!!_"

This time they heard him, forcing their way through the mob and pushing people back into their seats. Then they grabbed Brain by the tail, carried him to the door and calmly kicked him straight out of the building.

Grumbling furiously under his breath, Brain peeled himself off the sidewalk some fifty feet from the dome-shaped building and dusted himself off, batting at one of his ears until the bones snapped back into their correct places. He groaned and rubbed his skull, then, noticing his deerstalker cap lying on the pavement nearby, gave it the most disgusted look he had ever given to anything on the face of the planet, and he was quite possibly the overlord of disgusted looks. Then, with a grimace, Brain removed his entire Holmes costume, dropping it unceremoniously down a drainpipe. He had been _so close_. SO **CLOSE**.

Perhaps this _was_ a fanfiction after all.

Gritting his teeth angrily, Brain started down the road to Acme Labs in preparation for some vengeance. "Pinky," he began scathingly, "do you know _what_ I'm going to do to that 'Illustrious—"

A double-take. Pinky wasn't there.

Brain scurried about in a panic for a moment, trying desperately to spot his companion, then with a start his superior mind kicked into gear and he instead glared at the dome-shaped building with his flighty sidekick still inside. "_**PINKY!**_"

Within a moment, the door to the domelike building flew open and the security guards reemerged, this time giving the boot to a taller mouse wearing a false mustache, who flew through the air with hysterical laughter and landed with a _splat_ beside the Brain.

"Hi, Brain! _Troz!_" he giggled, pushing himself to his feet and doing a stationary jig for good measure. "Oh my, that _was_ fun-fun silly-willy! I mean, flyin' through the _air_ like that?" He twirled his miraculously unbroken umbrella in a flight of whimsy. "Isn't life _grand?_"

Brain just gave him a withering look, then, with a slight sigh, started gruffly off in the general direction of Acme Labs. "I suppose that's what I get for holding my inauguration as ruler of the world in a _roller-skating rink_," he muttered. "Cursed _spelling bees_, it was the only available building...but ah well. Come, Pinky, we must return to the lab to prepare for tomorrow night."

The taller mouse fell into step behind him, still staring enthralled up at his umbrella as he opened and closed it. "Why, Brain? What're we gonna do tomorrow night?"

The Brain grimaced, forcing out the distasteful last remark. "_Elementary_, my dear Pinky." Then, in his normal booming tones: "TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

"_They're Pinky,_

_They're Pinky and the_

_Brain Brain Brain Brai—"_

"AND STOP SINGING!"

* * *

**Epilogue**

Inside a small, badly-lit pet shop somewhere on the outskirts of Burbank, a hamster in his cage was brooding. "Ohhh, you'll _pay_ for this, Brain," he seethed, bloodshot eyes narrowing in hatred. If only that worthless, self-absorbed little rodent hadn't succeeded in angering him to the point of irrationality, then _he_ might have been ruler of the world right now. Instead, he was sitting on top of a pile of rotting, moldy straw beneath a leaky water bottle, and the smell was already starting to get to him.

At least, he mused, it was a reasonably secure headquarters. No one would suspect a hamster in a seedy pet store of thinking up plans for global domination. After all, he could avoid adoption quite easily, for, even as _handsome_ (in his own mind) a creature as he was, _nobody_ would buy a hamster who _bit_.

"_OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!_" squealed a high-pitched girl's voice from somewhere behind Snowball. He whirled around in shock to see a pale-skinned young girl with bouncy red Shirley Temple curls peering into his cage with wide eyes. "LOOKIT THE FUNNY FUZZY-HEAD! HE'S SUCH A _CUTE_ LITTLE FURRY-BURRY AMINAL!" The girl started to dance around excitedly, clasping her hands together and knocking violently into every cage in her immediate area. "I WILL _HUG_ HIM AN' _SQUEEZE_ HIM AN' _LOVE_ HIM 'TILL HE'S JUST AN ITTY-BITTY PILE OF _BONES!_"

It was then that Snowball noticed that the seemingly harmless decoration set in her blue-green bow was a hamster skull, and even through his golden fur he paled considerably.

"Oh dear."

**THE END**

* * *

_With an exhilarated cry, I post the final chapter of my long-delayed masterpiece on and close "Internet Explorer". Yes. YES!! (I feel like the Brain by this point, though I very sadly am unable to imitate his voice as well as I'd like.) AT LAST IT'S OVER!!_

"_**CRACKPOT!!**_

_...Not QUITE over._

_Poking my head innocently out of the bathroom, I respond, "Yeah?"_

_Even from fifteen feet away I can feel the weight of the Brain's furious glare, and my shoulders hunch up a little. Though I still manage to type all this up before casually returning to the table whereupon the two mice are perched. Pinky is still in his Watson attire, very reasonably more interested in his umbrella than in me, but Brain's pure outrage is kind of hard to ignore._

"_WHY DO YOU DERIVE SUCH PLEASURE FROM __**TORMENTING**__ ME?!" he demands in a half-pleading voice. A much as he hates to admit it, when I hold the computer, __**I**__ hold the power. "YOU'LL NEVER SEE A PENNY OF PROFIT! NOR WILL YOU ACCOMPLISH ANY GREATER GOALS!!"_

"_Not true," I reply—honestly, for once. I open up my PowerBook again, bring up a certain webpage and then hold my laptop out to the Brain, though not too close in case he feels violent. "The gratification comes from the reviewers, whose praise I don't really deserve but feeds my ego anyways. (Thanks, guys!) And the fact that I FINALLY delivered the story I promised to Welshrose so long ago."_

_Here Brain makes some choice remarks which many of the readers would find personally offensive, so I ignore him and type up this explanatory paragraph instead._

"_But it WAS fun, Brain," Pinky interrupts absently, still staring at his umbrella. In fact, he stares at it so intently that he doesn't realize that he's leaning backwards and so falls with a WHUMF onto his back. "'Cept that part with Snowball...'at was a li'l scary. _Poit!

_An expression of either pity or agreement crosses Brain's face, but he soon replaces it with more indignance. "And what about that 'foreign language' nonsense?! That made absolutely no sense and contributed little to the plot—WHAT THERE __**WAS**__ OF ANY!"_

_This is an empty jibe. Even __**I**__, my own biggest critic, know that there WAS, in fact, a plot. "I got most of those from an incredibly entertaining book titled _The Insult Dictionary_. They're for another contest. ...Even though no one ever entered that first one. Anyhow, if anyone can translate at least three of those statements, or one plus Pinky's outburst in chapter 3 (which you'd have to sound out phonetically and actually speak the language to know, I think), then they win their choice of a cameo in one of my upcoming fanfics or a request for a drawing on my webpage, which can be found by clicking the 'homepage' button on my FFN profile."_

_Pinky's attention has actually left his umbrella by now, and he's now studying my computer instead. "It's AMAZIN' how fast you typed that whole thing up."_

_Brain's eye twitches. "I don't care HOW fast you type!" he snaps, shaking a fist threateningly at me. "I __**ORDER**__ YOU TO DESIST WRITING FANFICTIONS ABOUT US!!"_

"_You'll get your wish...for a while." I sigh, deciding that putting my laptop down on another table is much more comfortable than balancing it on my knee. "I'm taking a break from the 'Pinky and the Brain' category. Unless I come up with some nifty ideas for oneshots." My expression becomes mischiveous á la Yakko Warner. "Y'know, I've got this whole loooong list at home of story ideas for you two..."_

_Apparently Brain thinks he can sensibly talk me out of this—and apparently he "don't know me vewy well, do he?". "Crackpot," he begins through gritted teeth, "these rambles are utterly pointless, no matter HOW much gratification you receive from 'reviewers'. There is absolutely no reason that ANY of us should partake in fanfictions. EVER. AGAIN."_

_I shrug, then gesture at a calendar and clock off in a corner. "But Brain, you just did months' worth of work executing a plan in the space of one night."_

_("Really more like 'in the space of nine months', though," Pinky remarks, breaking the fourth wall of the fourth wall, but thankfully Brain doesn't hear him.)_

"_And now you know that becoming the next Sherlock Holmes wouldn't help you to ACTUALLY take over the world," I continue. "So I really saved you time!"_

_Brain's eyes widen, and his ears twitch a little. "I—" he begins, then snaps out of it. "IT IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE! REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS PROPERTY!"_

_Uninterested in being physically kicked out again, I retrieve my _Thin Man_ movie and hurry out of the lab, managing to type up this paragraph as I do so. I can leave 'em alone for a while. It'll catch them off-guard for when I return._

_THANKS FOR READING, EVERYONE!_


End file.
